A Donald Trump presidency now seems increasingly unlikely, but the tycoon’s success in securing the Republican Party’s presidential nomination has concentrated minds. No one remotely like him has made it this far before. Richard Nixon behaved erratically on occasion – drinking Scotch and watching the film Patton all day, for instance, to steel himself for the invasion of Cambodia. And clearly something was starting to go wrong with Ronald Reagan in his second term. Yet both men were paragons of poise and equanimity compared to the current Republican nominee. What, we all wonder, could happen if the highest office in the world’s most powerful nation were to be occupied by someone so erratic and unpredictable?
In answering this question, we could look back to 1888, when the 29-year-old Wilhelm Hohenzollern ascended the throne to become the last kaiser of the German empire. The new monarch – the first grandchild of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert – was boastful, arrogant and impetuous. He spent most of his waking hours talking, arguing, shouting, predicting, threatening and generally unbosoming himself of his latest preoccupations to whomever happened to be within earshot. Even when he made the utmost effort to restrain himself, the indiscretions kept slipping out.
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