The Resolute desk at the White House is made of timbers taken from a Royal Navy ship. It projects pure power. Is that why the defeated US president has switched to an occasional table?

Has Donald Trump conceded the presidency by design? Is his choice of furniture betraying a subconscious admission of defeat? When the outgoing US president gave a speech this week saying he would depart if the electoral college voted for Joe Biden, his words came as less of a shock than the desk he chose to sit at. It was tiny. It sent out a clear signal. And that signal was “loser”.

Jokes about the shrunken size of Trump’s desk – one photograph, taken from low down, captures his legs barely fitting beneath it – are easy. So let’s not. Do you want to see a real ruler’s desk? The Resolute desk in the Oval Office is the definition of one: a massive fortress of a working space, like an aircraft carrier with legs, sporting the US eagle at the heart of its heavy Victorian carvings. Its timbers are British in origin: they come from a Royal Navy sailing ship, HMS Resolute, that once braved the icy waters of the north pole. And in a final addition of defensive machismo, Franklin D Roosevelt had the front bulwarked so no one could see his leg braces and discover he was disabled.

Trump’s appearance behind this itsy-bitsy piece of flotsam shows why Roosevelt and other presidents have always chosen to moor themselves behind the grandiose Resolute. It bulks them out. What Trump was leaning on was not even a desk. It was merely a table. It fails all the design criteria required of a desk. It isn’t even an escritoire, which may be cozy but at least has important-looking drawers. Nor could it qualify as a secretaire. In fact, there’s no storage at all. Has he already cleared everything out?