The #MeToo movement has two excesses Mr Trump will be sure to exploit. The first is the rush to pronounce guilt without a hearing. Mr Franken requested an inquiry, but politics lacks patience. Ms Gillibrand is now facing a backlash of her own from Democratic donors. What may help her with primary voters could boomerang in a general election. Second, the viral campaigns against men have sometimes conflated misbehaviour with criminal offences. That is the nature of Twitter.

Many careers have been ended. Some of the men deserve lengthy jail sentences. Others should improve their manners. The latter may be collateral damage in a just war, but there are Americans of all genders who question the fairness of viral justice.

Against this, there is the Republican party. It should be little surprise so few women are applying to be candidates for a party led by Mr Trump. In December, Alabama’s voters broke the habit of a generation by electing a Democratic senator. Republicans had put up a man — Roy Moore — who was accused of serially dating teenaged girls. Mr Moore is now backing a Senate candidate in Missouri who calls feminists “she-devils”. If Republicans keep tolerating men like this, they will write themselves into oblivion. But such candidates tend to be outliers.