OPINION: By Janet Daley
In the end, we will have the worst possible result.
Even if Joe Biden edges it – which, at the time of writing, still looks likely – this election will be a pretty much perfect exemplification of the implacably divided state of the nation.
If Donald Trump barricades himself into the White House and drags the whole thing into the courts, the battle will break out in the streets as well and this will begin to look like civil war.
He is already challenging the legitimacy of the process – as indeed he began to do weeks ago in anticipation of precisely this outcome.
But let's wait for that next chapter. The tanks are not yet in the streets. What matters most now is an analysis of what has – or seems to be – happening.
First has to be the question of why Trump's insouciant attitude to the pandemic – so unlike that of almost other world leaders – did not cost him more in votes. That was just one of the things that the opinion polls got wrong.
His defiance of the rules on masks and social distancing should – according to received opinion – have put him beyond the pale. In most European countries, that would probably have been true.
But "libertarianism" is not a minority doctrine in the United States: it is the very essence of national identity. Every schoolchild learns of Patrick Henry's great revolutionary cry, "Give me liberty or give me death".
When Trump refused to submit to the restrictions, he was seen by a significant tranche of the electorate not as irresponsible but as living up to the true American credo. And then, like some fabled hero, he caught the virus and conquered it.
Then there is the question of policies as opposed to character. The grotesque persona that has fascinated (and repelled) so many may have been less of a factor in his appeal than the chanting rally crowds seemed to suggest.
His reforms of the tax and regulatory systems made a material difference to huge sections of the US economy – and to vast numbers of taxpayers. On the "jobs, jobs, jobs" promise, he had delivered a lot. Much of what he managed to achieve could have been done by any sound Republican president – especially with control of both houses of Congress – but they were done by him and he could legitimately claim the credit.
The trap for liberals and the Democratic party was that in attacking him and his character, they were also seen to be rejecting his economic solutions – and that made them appear to be indifferent to the desperation of rust belt America and the concerns of large numbers of struggling middle class people.
What would have happened if the Democrats had shown more interest in those policies? Instead of insisting that everything that Trump was proposing had to be tainted by his repugnant behaviour – which will certainly become more egregious if he manages to win a second term – why couldn't they ask themselves why his programme had so much appeal for precisely the sort of blue collar Americans that they used to regard as their own?
Clinton, the second-youngest living US president, has had a series of health issues.