A few weeks ago, in a large business hotel in Washington DC, a crowd of around 80 people had congregated outside one of the ballrooms when the double doors opened and a bald man in jeans and a lumberjack shirt backed out into the hallway. He was bent almost in half, wedging the doors open. "We're almost ready to begin!" he called out. The crowd, who were waiting for a panel discussion on the future of the American right, entitled Conservatism 2.0, paid only partial attention: the organisers had just started distributing sandwiches and cans of Coke, which interested them more. Then the man stood up, and brushed off his hands on his jeans. He smelled strongly of aftershave.