Gerald Ford, of course, does not count given he was not elected to either the vice-presidency or the presidency.

Considered a "safe pair of hands" by the Republicans, he replaced Spiro Agnew as the vice-president, and then, on Nixon's resignation, was automatically elevated to the highest office.

Carter, probably the least Trumpian president since Woodrow Wilson, lost to Reagan after being perceived, perhaps unjustly, as weak and indecisive during a time of global economic and diplomatic upheaval.

Hoover, who was also as unlike Trump as it was possible to get, fell foul of two things: the Great Depression; and the candidacy of the charismatic Democratic contender, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who won a record four presidential elections before dying in office.

While Biden may lack the stature of Roosevelt and Reagan, who reshaped the world and ushered in extended periods of peace, reform, and reconstruction, Trump certainly lacks the humility and idealism of Jimmy Carter, and the patriotism, compassion and work ethic displayed by Hoover.

He is, whichever way you look at it, a moral and intellectual pygmy in a landscape dominated by giants.

Trump is also on trend to go down in history as the most divisive and destabilising North American ruler since King George III of The Madness of King George fame.

The irony is Trump could have been elected to a second term, and possibly even gone down in the history books as a wildly eccentric, but still mildly successful, president, if circumstances hadn't found him out.

Bequeathed a budding economic recovery built on the back of policies and reforms initiated by the Obama administration, he also managed to tap the support of the forgotten and dispossessed, whose British equivalents voted for Brexit.

Trump achieved some surprising diplomatic coups, including a seeming rapprochement with North Korea, and honoured his promise to begin extricating America from the fruitless foreign wars and entanglements that, like Vietnam, had sapped its strength for the better part of a generation.

But this is apparently not to be. Trump has been exposed as a hedonistic, irresponsible, and incompetent lightweight - a "fair-weather president" - by the massive global disruption caused by the coronavirus.

He is, to paraphrase the old saying, "not a good man to be in a foxhole with".

The opposite is actually the case. Many of his friends and advisers have found out, to their surprise, that the guy they thought had their backs was actually the fiendish foe wielding the knife.

Trump's inadequacies, blindingly obvious since the start of the "Black Lives Matter" movement, carried him to what must come close to "peak lunacy" this week.

His proposal to postpone the November election, which was soon walked back - presumably as a result of advice from wiser heads within the Republican Party - would be, if achievable, little short of an invitation for another civil war.

Trump's subsequent remarks undermining the American electoral process by saying any result would be tainted by postal voting have raised the possibility that if he is defeated at the ballot box he may refuse to leave the White House.

Is this too fantastic for words? We are just going to have to wait and see.