WHEN it comes time to make a movie about the Trump presidency, some unfortunate screenwriter is going to find all the best titles have been taken. Creative tinkering will be required, particularly if the filmmaker wants to home in on the true tale of the president’s eldest son, Donald Jr, and his meeting with a Russian lawyer.

Would one plump, for example, for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Numbskull? Eternal Sunshine of the Clueless Mind? Indiana Jones and the Temple of Dumb?

There are some who see Junior’s actions as more arrogant than naive, as symptomatic of first a campaign, and then a presidency, that mocks accepted norms with impunity. After all, the death of the Trump presidency has been much exaggerated before. Is this time any different?

Even before he got to the White House, Mr Trump was untouchable. No setback, including the release of a tape on which he boasted of grabbing women by the expletive deleted, proved fatal. Since taking office there has been the row over inauguration crowd numbers, the collapse of his travel ban, the alleged pressuring of an FBI chief, the tweeting, the bare-knuckle press conferences, all have come and gone and left barely a dent. But the Russia story is different, is it not? With several congressional committees already investigating, this matter above all others has the potential to do momentous harm to President Trump. To be accused of accepting foreign help is shocking enough. If such accusations were proven it would amount to a scandal worse than Watergate, a shame that was at least home-grown. It is a delicate situation, therefore. The mother of all fine china shops, the kind of establishment that would bar entry to passing bulls and children. Enter, then, number one Trump son and 39-year-old political toddler, Donald Trump Jr.

To be fair to Junior, he had started to take more of a back seat. He had gone home to New York and was safe in his Trump organisation day job. Not for him any Ivanka-style duties, such as keeping father’s seat warm during summits. Junior’s current problems, however, stem from those heady, not so long ago, campaign days.

As the New York Times has revealed, Junior was contacted by a publicist for a Russian pop star. The president’s son had met the singer at the Miss Universe Pageant in Russia in 2013. The PR man proposed setting up a meeting at which the campaign would be offered “official documents” and information that “would incriminate Hillary [Clinton] and her dealings with Russia.” The material was described as “obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr Trump”.

Now, if you received such an email, how might you react? Even if you were oblivious to the fact that accepting foreign help would be against the law, basic instinct would suggest this was the hottest of potatoes, not to be touched. But Junior’s response? “If it’s what you say I love it”.

We know all this because Junior, on learning the New York Times was about to publish the emails, released them himself. The balloon has duly gone up, with some, including Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, senator Tim Kaine, going so far as to mention the T for treason word. Junior says his father knew nothing of the meeting, which turned out, he said, to be about adoption. The get-together was “a nothing … just a wasted 20 minutes.”

What this “nothing” might amount to for Donald Trump Jr is another matter. Trump senior, who denies any collusion between his campaign and Russia, remains officially unfazed, declaring that his son had done “a good job” in publishing the emails. “He was open, transparent and innocent” said the president, calling the Russia imbroglio “the greatest witch hunt in political history”. Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, expressed himself baffled by the fuss over a meeting. “It’s amazing that serious people are making a mountain out of a molehill.”

And so the circus rolls on to other days, fresh claims and counter-claims. If there is one thing that the Trump presidency can said to have excelled in it is survival. Campaigns and administrations have taken serious knocks before. Hillary Clinton of all people, from her time as First Lady, knows that. But for a presidency to take so many hits so early on and keep on going is a remarkable achievement.

The main reason for this is not the President’s skill in countering criticism, but the fact that for now no-one can lay a glove on him. The wheels of democracy must continue to turn, and be seen to turn, regardless of how long it takes. Even if the committee deliberations result in condemnation of the president, the currently Republican-controlled House is unlikely to impeach, or the Senate convict. Meanwhile, the media continues to break stories that in any other era, with any other presidency, would be the cause of major political earthquakes. But the Trump presidency is still standing, still condemning the media as purveyors of “fake news”, even if the documents they report on are released by his own son.

America seems to be suffering from a condition best described as Trump outrage fatigue. It reached a certain plateau after the election, and it spikes now and again, but essentially it continues on the same level. The patient seems unwilling or unable to shrug it off, to find some way to break the fever and move on.

But what does it matter? America has been divided for so long on so many issues the Trump presidency would hardly seem to make much difference. Yet it does. Leaving aside the wider, global harm that could follow from having a distracted and weakened America turning in on itself, there is the damage being done to democracy. Mr Trump was swept into office on a wave of disillusionment with the status quo. That same disenchantment, far from being reversed, is being fuelled further by the Russia claims. How this democratic disaster movie ends no-one, not even Hollywood’s most imaginative minds, knows.