After months of community resistance, the president backed down. Leadership from below succeeded when politics as usual failed

For most politicians and journalists, the answer to nearly every question is to look up. Not at the moon, the stars or even the chimney tops, but at their leaders: the people who sit atop institutions, wield power and set the line that others follow. The top of the totem pole is the sole focal point, and the stories that count usually come from the heights of power.

Bend your neck back far enough and Davos becomes not a talking shop in a Swiss ski resort, but a gathering of world leaders; Keir Starmer flying into Beijing is a summit of great powers; even who should be the MP for Gorton and Denton is really all about the Labour leadership. For this piece, the Guardian’s research librarians counted how many times the words “leader” or “leadership” appeared across the British press. Over the past week alone, the rough total stands at 2,000. A third of those stories concern one man: Donald Trump.

Aditya Chakrabortty is a Guardian columnist