We don’t want to close our borders. We don’t want to lock innocent people up. We don’t want to police free speech — although we do speak to a script. Whenever a terror attack happens, our politicians say: Everything is under control, keep calm and carry on, nothing must change. This is testing the patience of the public. Things are changing; they’ve changed dramatically for the families of the dead.

Through this veneer of political correctness, Trump cuts like a knife.

Trump gets it. Not the policy detail or the fine detail of the challenge we face, but he gets the raw, instinctive sense that things can’t go on as they are — that every time the elite say things are fine, they lose credibility and things feel even worse.

The free world was led for eight years by the sublimely intelligent Barack Obama, who left office with things in pretty much the same disorder. The promise that Trump holds out is to be honest about the situation and take the steps necessary to change it. Where he oversteps the line, the law will hopefully restrain him — as the travel ban illustrates.