A half-Scottish President! How thrilling.

What an appropriate fillip to a special relationship spanning several centuries of sentimental yearning, cultural appropriation and accent-mangling in both directions.

Unsurprisingly for a mongrel nation whose extant power structures were largely put in place by European immigrants and their descendants, many previous presidents of the United States have had some Scottish ancestry. In fact, it has been claimed that only ten out of the 44 Presidents to date have had no Scottish blood in their veins.

But now, look! A bona fide demi-Hebridean, complete with the hardy wind-frazzled fringe of a Highland cow. What a great moment for Scotland, as it continues to assert its identity and seek out new friends in a changing world.

Well, except for the fact that the President-elect is a bit of a tricky proposition. Not only a generally embarrassing disaster of a person for whose elevation to high office children of all nations will justly scorn our whole generation, but a figure whose specific interaction with Scotland has been, shall we say, a little fraught.

Prior to his playful tilt at the presidency, Donald Trump was chiefly known in Scotland for his alleged relentless bullying of various of its residents into letting their homes be subsumed by one of the hellish fake-gold golf follies he likes to go broke on. The whole island of Lewis, from whence his mother hailed, was pronounced "pretty disgusted with what comes across about him" by a local Free Church minister just before the election.

Many of Trump's declared values, real or not, clash directly with the declared values, real or not, of a vastly popular First Minister for Scotland, who stripped him of his status as a Global Scot ambassador in protest at the tenor of his campaign.

Indeed, Nicola Sturgeon saw herself as so divided from Trump during his campaign, and his victory as such an outside possibility, that she was open in her disparagement of him. And she wasn't alone: Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale and Patrick Harvie all joined her in scoffing at the Republican candidate.

Whether they are or should be regretting this now is one of those sticky matters of personal conviction versus pragmatism. We might feel pride in our politicians for being frank in their assessment of a man whose rhetoric conjures the distant sound of jackboots, or be moved to a slight facepalm at the immaturity of letting the pleasure of a cheap jibe at a figure of fun outweigh the possibility of one day having to do business with him.

And we might also note the irony of Scotland having distanced itself so from the President-elect even as multiple commentators continue to note the rise of the SNP and the ascension of Trump as symptoms, along with the Brexit vote, of the same global syndrome: Distrust of mainstream elites; faith in emotion-driven populism; a powerful urge to stick it to the status quo, whatever the consequences.

Whether or not we accept any commonality, the question remains: Will the cultural ties that have bound Scotland and America, from the drafting of the Declaration of Independence (partially modelled on the 1320 Declaration of Arbroath) through Brigadoon, Lobey Dosser, the Grand Ole Opry, Tutti Frutti, Braveheart and Brave, survive the current frosty atmosphere between Mr Trump and his mother's homeland?

Will Scottish dignitaries and cultural notables be as keen as they have been in the past to join the annual trade-and-tourism jolly that is Tartan Week? Will a television series involving a road trip across the States remain a de rigueur rite of Scottish celebrity passage? And will Scottish pop bands continue to put on American accents and worship at the throne of American music? Or is it all going to be a bit awkward for a wee while now?

It's a conundrum because, after all, the America which we keep hearing has reasserted itself in this election - the rusty post-industrial heartlands; the simple, straight-talking, salt-of-the-earth working class folks - is the same America with which Scotland has long liked to associate itself.

It's not the pioneering thinkers or the neurotic urban intellectuals of America who crop up as continual reference points in Scottish pop culture, but the cowboys, the line-dancers, the hard-drinking drifters and the bequiffed white rock'n'rollers. Brooding, volatile, anti-authoritarian types; working class heroes rather than aristocracy; rebels and rascals rather than know-it-all insiders.

If Scotland's idealised American cleaves closer to the profile of a Trump voter than a supporter of Clinton or Obama, that's surely attributable in part to the fact that emigrants from Scotland helped to people the American working class, and thus to supply certain associated stereotypes - taciturnity; cynicism; censorious morality. This is some of the "blood that flowed away/ Across the ocean to the second chance", in The Proclaimers' beloved lament for the Scottish diaspora, Letter from America.

But the acknowledgment of any kinship between the raw, rebellious America that Scots have so long romanticised, and the raw, rebellious America that just voted in Donald Trump, creates discomfort, flying as it does in the face of the open, tolerant, sophisticated image of Scotland that has been promoted during and since the referendum.

Some have already voiced the fear that Trump's inner Scottishness will show itself through sneaky back-door socialism. "When The Donald goes left, blame his Scottish roots," blustered a recent article on The Daily Beast, which darkly noted that "the Scots are notorious taxers and welfare-staters and victim-players", and peaking with the observation that "like many Scots, Trump, too, seems to have a special disdain for those entering his home turf from South of the border."

So does Scotland have more Trump in it than it might want to acknowledge? Is Trump more of a closet Scot than has been supposed? We may be spared the chance to find out: Even before he had this much to contend with, Trump's awareness of those Scottish interests not directly related to his golf empire was limited enough for him to have tweeted that Scots were "going wild" over having "taken their country back" via the Brexit vote.

Still, should anyone be feeling anxious for this prodigal son's approval, there's no reason to suppose that he won't warm to Nicola Sturgeon, despite a rocky start - or that he will expect any consistency of opinion from her. Her predecessor Alex Salmond took but a year to shift in Trump's estimation from "the dumbest leader of the free world" to "a tough, smart guy... formidable by any standard!"

Ah, standards. Let's see who decides to maintain theirs, and who proves diplomatically amenable to being Trumped.

Hannah McGill is a writer, critic and broadcaster based in Edinburgh. She writes for Scotland on Sunday, Sight and Sound, The Independent and The Times among other outlets. From 2006 to 2010 she was the artistic director of the Edinburgh International Film Festival.