IMAGINE being stranded in transit and barred from entering a country solely because being Scottish singles you out as a potentially dangerous individual, someone that must be prevented from mixing with its citizens. Imagine being taken out of the queue and separated because your nationality links you to a religion that you may or may not actually practice.

I try never to use the comparison lightly, but there is a definite whiff of Nazism about the situation facing the hundreds of people held at airports and in transit around the world as I write this, who have been caught up in President Donald Trump’s latest scheme to “make America great again”, his executive order banning many Muslims from entering the US.

Having a valid visa or being a refugee doesn’t matter a jot – holding a passport issued by Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, Sudan or Libya makes you an instant Islamic fundamentalist and potential terrorist and thus America won’t be letting you in. These are the sort of facts - or alternative facts - we can expect to see more of in our depraved new world.

As with many issues related to President Trump, there appears at first glance to be little method amid the madness: in his universe there are “Muslims” and “Muslims”. Being from Saudi Arabia is fine, it would appear, while being from Pakistan actually makes you “exceptional” and “fantastic”.

As soon as the order was made the chaos began with hundreds of people denied access to their home in the US or even allowed to fly somewhere else via the country. The surreality of the situation was highlighted by the case of Dr Hamaseh Tayari, a Glasgow-based vet and post-doctoral student told she could not fly from Costa Rica back to Scotland via New York, left stranded and relying on a crowdfunding campaign to get her home via somewhere that did not discriminate against Iranian nationals, despite the fact she actually lives in the UK and grew up in Italy.

At the time of writing, following a wave of protest from the US and around the world – including from Somalian-born Sir Mo Farah, who lives in the US with his family and might now struggle to return there from his training in Ethiopia - US judges have temporarily halted some deportations, though it is unclear as yet what will happen to those still being held.

But there is method in Mr Trump’s madness, of course, since it’s all about showing the faithful how all-powerful and decisive he is. The global press has been telling them for weeks that their man will never get away with all the seemingly outlandish promises he made during the election campaign. This order is a middle finger to that notion, as were plans unveiled last week to build the promised wall with Mexico and news that the new defence secretary has 30 days to come up with a plan to defeat ISIS. Regardless of how awful and downright daft all this seems to many, make no mistake, it will be music to the ears of those who put Mr Trump in the White House; the outrage of others, no matter how righteousness, won’t register with any of them; they revel in it.

It will register with Prime Minister Theresa May, however, who was worryingly slow to condemn the President’s position, no doubt well aware that only hours earlier she was pictured by the world’s media being led by the hand around the White House by Mr Trump. She was apparently seeking “consolidation of the special relationship” during her visit; everyone knows, though, this really means she was desperately chasing a post-Brexit trade deal. And she may well have got one.

This, of course, is what Mrs May has been reduced to post-Brexit, allowing herself to be used by Mr Trump to legitimise his dangerous, post-truth politics and by doing so, ultimately complicit in them. I don’t think for a minute Mrs May actually supports Mr Trump’s ban on Muslims but her clear reluctance to register disagreement highlights not only her priorities as premier, but also the new approach to diplomacy since the Brexit vote.

She obviously calculated that the flack was worth taking. And there are many in her party and no doubt the wider country who support this stance. Just as Mr Trump is seen by his supporters as looking after America’s interests, so Mrs May will be congratulated by some for looking after Britain’s. Indeed this was highlighted yesterday as she signed a £100m defence deal with brutal Turkish President Erdogan to build fighter jets. Mrs May has a one-track mind: trade trumps all. She’s happy to let others do outage while she does business. The post-morality age has just entered a new era, and like it or not, post-Brexit Britain is at the forefront.