Politics is a rough trade, practised by seasoned professionals not known for thin-skinned sensibility. But the election of Donald Trump was greeted with such a Banshee-like howl one would be forgiven for thinking that life, Jim, as we know it, is over.
However, there are some positives to be taken from this event.
Democracy
Older voters were more likely to vote for Trump in the US and for #Brexit in the UK https://t.co/nDaFLLAUdL pic.twitter.com/E7TjQVcTE3
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 11, 2016
Despite the shrill warnings that this is the end of democracy and the world is resounding to the march of jackboots once again, this could be the reboot that politics in the West needs.
The financial crash benefitted the 1 per cent with shed-loads of assets. Everybody else got a severe dose of austerity.
The influence of the EU-IMF troika and the inability of sovereign governments in countries like Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy to determine their own fate, illustrated the gulf between the rulers and the ruled. The Brexit campaign bolstered that feeling, turning on the establishment. Trump’s victory has copper-fastened the sense that there’s more to come.
The traditional vehicles for articulating discontent – trade unions, social democratic parties and those further left – were either hollowed out or wedded to outmoded ideas. Hillary Clinton tacked herself to the left because of Bernie Sanders' success in connecting with young people but not nearly enough of that constituency believed in her.
Now, there is no alternative. It is time for new thinking and a rediscovery of traditional liberal/left tenets: being a voice for the downtrodden, not a handmaiden for untrammelled and unaccountable global capitalism.
US infrastructure
In terms of infrastructure, the US has been crumbling for years. Obama could get very little of his planned projects through a Congress that would have likely voted against a cure for cancer had he discovered it.
Trump has promised to rebuild the US road network, something which he should be able to do, probably with bipartisan support. He has also promised to build the infamous border wall, something that he may be unable to do.
Either way, there will be more jobs and more money poured into this vital but neglected sector.
US-Russia relations
For years, commentators have been saying that the US has overreached itself, that it has to acknowledge the American Century is coming to an end with China asserting itself and a resurgent Russia.
Along comes Trump, the first modern US president who has said he wants to pare back his country's global commitment and make its allies shoulder their fair share of the burden (only the US, Greece, the UK, Estonia and Poland have exceeded the 2 per cent of GDP set by Nato as the recommended spend). And everybody has a fit of the wobbles. A classic case of be careful of what you wish for.
Trump's admiration for Vladimir Putin may translate into the best relations between Russia and the US in decades, a reset that eluded the Obama presidency.
The media
The traditional news media with its fondness for balance is still coming to terms with the post-truth world, articulated so pithily by chief Brexiteer Michael Gove with his claim that "people have had enough of experts", and brought to a new level by Trump's habit of constantly contradicting himself.
In this new world what counts is conviction and connection - the twin pillars of social media - not balance and fairness.
Juxtaposing Trump’s outbursts with Clinton’s nuanced policy stances is not balance, its equivalence. Crazy stuff needs to be called just that, crazy.
The media did not let the facts get in the way of a good story. It needs to reverse that old saw.
The mushy centre
One of the great shibboleths of politics has been that you cannot win by straying too far from the centre. Well, Brexit and Trump have well-and-truly cratered that one.
Both campaigns, aided by the gales of xenophobia, racism and misogyny, strayed so far from the centre they disappeared over the horizon.
The fluid centre, long the bedrock of liberal democracy, needs to reenergise itself with all shades of opinion residing in this spectrum asserting itself with vigour.
Awake Edmund Burke, your descendants need you.
The EU
Any state east of the Oder has to be worried. Trump has said he will abandon military commitments that have shielded western Europe and provided security for the former Soviet satellites. His bromance with Putin is well known.
Events in the Ukraine and Russian military manoeuvres on the borders of the Baltic states has more than spooked the former communist countries, even for those lucky enough to be members of the EU.
Such membership should be seen not only as an economic positive but also a security one.
Yet as the bloc grapples with seemingly intractable problems and its subjects become more restive, membership could soon be viewed as a liability rather than a boon.
Now more than ever the EU needs to reform rather than fracture as Marine le Pen, Nigel Farage, Geert Van Wilders and a host of others would have it.
Its ethos, painstakingly built upon since the second World War has been obscured by a technocracy that is near-universally viewed as remote, arrogant and diktat driven.
Only by reconnecting with the citizens of Europe can the EU survive and bind its diverse peoples together. Only by listening to the concerns of its citizens and acting upon them now will it forestall the mob, armed with smartphones and hashtags, from storming the gates.
* Conn O Midheach is Assistant Business Editor - Digital at The Irish Times