United States President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan. Photos / AP
United States President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan. Photos / AP
OPINION:
With most American presidential elections, it's hard not to wish that the rest of the world could also have a say.
That's especially the case this time after four years of Donald Trump stretching and contorting the United States presidency into unrecognisable shapes.
The stakes at play over thecountry's direction are much bigger than the candidates themselves.
Electing this made-for-make-believe president in 2016 has resulted in a huge stress test for American democracy.
The underlying conditions were already there. It just took a celebrity businessman with a reality TV background, gaining office via a deeply flawed electoral system and forced to deal with a mammoth disaster, to bring the brew to boiling point.
A notable feature of Trump's first term has been his ability to find and fan issues to divide Americans on party lines - including Covid-19 health measures.
These fissures run through various aspects of life from the pandemic, to views on the economy, racial justice, health, social issues, the environment and crime. The Democratic coalition is multi-racial and largely urban. Republican supporters are mostly white with many in rural states.
Trump's Democratic rival Joe Biden pitches to be a president for all Americans as Trump maintains a laser focus on his own supporters. The Republican wants to keep his tribe onside and fired up to ensure power through the state-by-state Electoral College. The "them" in Trump's "us-against-them" are fellow US citizens.
Democratic presidential candidate former Vice-President Joe Biden greets supporters at a drive-in rally in Atlanta, Georgia.
Trump triumphed as a political newcomer with no time for institutions, rules and norms, but with a knowledge of how the media and star power worked. He then proceeded to stampede through Washington's antiquated customs.
Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, two previous presidents who also had experience of privilege, business and celebrity, at least also had governing experience in California and Texas, respectively.
Like Bush in 2000, Trump won through the Electoral College without the added legitimacy of winning the popular vote as well. Republicans have won the popular vote just once - Bush in 2004 - since 1988. The party's last three presidential wins have all been tight.
Unlike with Bush, a Trump second term would almost certainly only come through another split result with Biden likely winning the popular vote. More than 90 million people have cast their ballots already, 66 per cent of the total 2016 vote.
A supporter watches as President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in West Salem, Wisconsin.
The election has been a referendum on Trump all year. He started 2020 with impeachment and goes into the election wrongly proclaiming the US has the coronavirus in its rear-view mirror, even as case numbers soar. The US has had 9.1 million confirmed infections and 230,300 deaths after a highly politicised response to the virus.
Throughout the year the country's chronic problems have been exposed and its politics stripped to bare political calculations, shameless self-interest and naked power grabs.
This has been exemplified by the nomination of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, bulldozed through a week before election day, and after 60 million people had already voted.
Instead of focusing on passing badly needed pandemic financial aid for people, businesses and states, the Republican-controlled Senate focused on Barrett's nomination to give the court a six to three conservative tilt and a years-long legacy with healthcare soon on its agenda.
A president who lost the popular vote has now put three justices on the court with the help of a minority Senate. According to Vox, the 47 Democratic and one Republican senators who voted against Barrett represent 13.5 million more people than the 52 Republican senators who voted for her.
A key problem is that Senate representation is not based on population size. The biggest state, California, has the same number of senators as small Iowa.
People listen during a drive-in rally for Joe Biden in Atlanta.
America's domestic dilemmas have wider significance. What the US does or does not do ripples out to all of us. The economy. The environment. Foreign policy. Culture. Political trends. Ideas.
America fills a role in the world that can be inspiring, moving and innovative at best, but is also frequently problematic and destructive.
There have been decades of conflict and questionable diplomatic interventions since World War II. The country's traditional promotion of itself as a force for good and a beacon of democracy has often seemed unrealistic and hypocritical to outsiders.
Yet when a global disaster strikes or regional catastrophes occur, we are used to America stepping up and helping out. We are not used to staring at an unfiltered US from afar and seeing a leadership void, hopeless division and raw systemic sores.
The pandemic has restated the worth of competent, thought-through, policy-based governance and leadership that can inspire public trust - central to functioning democracies.
The Trump show this year has daily featured content you wouldn't willingly want your kids to see, from pushing bleach as a possible Covid cure, encouraging extremists, promoting conspiracy theories and calling for political opponents to be locked up.
As captured viewers, we will soon find out if it will be renewed - or if we will get a more relaxing watch.
