IT’S almost week since Trump stole the White House – Clinton got more votes, remember – yet we are all still here. Can the world adjust? One bellwether is the state of the US stock market. By the weekend, Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which tracks a wide range of firms serving the American domestic market, was actually up by four per cent. The bond market also experienced a big sell-off, meaning investors think there is less risk around in the US economy with The Donald in charge.

All of which suggests that large sections of American capitalism are happy with Donald Trump in power because they think they can make a buck or two. Whatever The Donald represents, it is not a populist uprising against the foundations of American capitalism. Trump may have garnered the votes of the white poor with his bar room promises to fix complicated global problems overnight, but the mainstream of American business – including the banks – is quietly confident that Mr Trump is one of their own. Which is why they are voting for his success with their wallets.

Note carefully the first promises made by Trump on election night: to press ahead with a massive fiscal boost to the slow-moving US economy by pouring federal cash into a programme of spending on infrastructure. “We are going to fix our inner cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools, hospitals,” Trump said. “We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure, which will become, by the way, second to none. And we will put millions of our people to work as we rebuild it.” Yes, and Herr Hitler did the same thing by building the autobahn.

Trump represents a particular wing of domestic American capitalism that has been at odds with those firms that have benefited directly from globalisation, namely high tech companies like Apple, Amazon, Microsoft and Google. The business model of these latter corporations relies heavily on offshore manufacturing using cheap Asian or Mexican labour. Super profits are then laundered through a complex series of international havens to avoid paying taxes – which explains the lack of state cash available to keep US infrastructure from falling down. Instead, these high tech big names borrow (thanks to zero interest rates) to buy back their own shares, to give share owners a boost to the value of their remaining stake in the company.

Meanwhile, unless you are a college graduate in the part of the economy where you shuffle financial paper, design ads to make folk buy more, or rake in bank bonuses, you just get poorer. In this new US economy, trades union membership has shrunk from 22 per cent of all workers when Bill Clinton was first elected president in 1993 to less than 12 per cent today, removing the ability of America’s blue collar working class to bargain for higher wages. More to the point, it was the Clintons and the Democrats who championed this new “pseudo” economy, which is why they have lost out to Trump’s crass, racist and misogynistic demagogy. And why a disgruntled wing of US capitalism is happy to see The Donald in a position to protect their interests, even if that means turning away from free trade deals.

What will Trump economics look like? To succeed in a crash infrastructure investment programme, he is going to need the approval of the newly elected Republican Congress. Many Republican politicians are still wedded to slashing public spending. But my guess is that Trump will buy them off by prompting big cuts in corporate and personal taxation. Of course, spending more and taxing less will balloon the deficit. But Republicans won’t care if it gets Trump a second term. Besides, if a Trump spending binge triggers US inflation – a not unlikely outcome – that will whittle away the real value of the national debt he runs up. I remember that President Reagan did exactly the same thing.

TRUMP also intends to tear up the Paris climate change agreement and burn fossil fuels till the air turns blue. He has also promised to “dismantle” the Dodd-Frank Act which was passed after the 2008 banking crisis and which forced US deposit banks to stop gambling with depositors’ money in the financial markets, and get back to ordinary lending. It might come as a surprise to his voters that Demagogic Donald is actually more pro-banker rather than pro-working class. Sadly, it’s too late now he has the keys to the While House. Since Tuesday, shares of mega-bank JPMorgan Chase are up eight per cent. Shares of Apple, on the other hand, are down two per cent. Message: Wall Street always wins no matter who gets elected president.

At some point, America’s white working class will realise they have been taken for a ride by the former reality TV star their votes put in the White House. As a rule, billionaire politicians end up supporting the interests of fellow billionaires. But I expect Trump to have a honeymoon period before we get to any significant backlash. What is vital is that the various progressive movements that have begun to emerge against both Trump-style politics and the Clinton machine – the youth who supported Bernie Sanders, the growing Green movement in the US, and those who called for the Million Women March in Washington DC the day after Trump’s inauguration – create some sort of permanent political structure to the left of the Democrats.

What does Trump’s success portend for Scotland? Right-wing commentator Iain Martin – who often has an acute eye – suggests Trump “could be very bad for the SNP and those who seek to make Scotland independent”. Martin says Brexit has already complicated matters as England is by far Scotland’s biggest export market, so why would voters choose independence inside the EU, which he says would rupture economic relations with the UK. With Trump now in the White House, Martin asks if Scottish voters are “really going to be up for even more upheaval?” Besides: “The EU was pretty rickety before Trump. It now looks even less robust despite the claims of the Panglossian Europhiles of the SNP that the EU is somehow the model of the future.”

These are fair questions, though easily answered. The wing of US capitalism behind Trump is bent on protecting American interests from foreign penetration. Which means the real Panglossians are those daft Tory Brexiteers who think a UK outside of Europe will suddenly find new export markets in Trump’s America. Dream on! Theresa May was, as we know, well down the list of world leaders phoned by Trumpthe new president elect.

The only hope to save (even grow) Scotland’s export industries is to retain and strengthen our existing natural links with Europe. Certainly, President Trump is a wildcard. But promoting Scotland’s interests in such uncertain times suggests we distance ourselves from his administration, not run towards it as the Brexiteers want to do.

Now more than ever Scotland needs to be in a position to set our own progressive agenda.