America braced as two stark visions collide on election day

America is selecting its path ahead, and the stakes couldn’t be greater.

Each candidates have offered stark visions for the long run in the event that they lose this election. Donald Trump says the nation will “go to hell” and develop into “communist instantly” if he loses, whereas Kamala Harris describes her opponent as a “fascist” who desires “unchecked energy”.

Voters in the important thing battleground states have been bombarded by marketing campaign adverts, a lot of it designed to induce concern. Given this local weather, it’s no marvel surveyed Individuals are reporting excessive ranges of hysteria.

“I do consider they’re making us reside in concern simply to get our vote,” Heather Soucek instructed me in Wisconsin as election day loomed. She lives in a swing county in a swing state, and plans to again Trump as a result of, in her phrases, Harris’s financial plans are “scary”.

However simply alongside the road, I additionally met Tracy Andropolis, a registered impartial who mentioned she would vote for Harris. “It is some of the vital elections in my lifetime. There’s so much on the road,” she mentioned, including that she was involved Trump would refuse to surrender energy if he gained.

Each expressed real fears for the long run if their candidate misplaced, reflecting the existential temper of many citizens on the eve of the election.

Ms Andropolis additionally instructed me she didn’t consider the neck-and-neck polls. Not as a result of she has any actual proof, however as a result of she can’t envisage thousands and thousands of individuals planning to vote for Trump. And he or she is not at all alone in her struggles to simply accept the closeness of this race.

One of many issues I’ve discovered travelling round this nation and speaking to voters is that America would not simply appear remarkably divided, it feels as if two separate nations are awkwardly cohabiting on the identical land mass.

Democrats primarily reside within the cities and suburbs, with Republicans principally dwelling in rural areas. Individuals are more and more shifting to locations the place their neighbours share their political outlook. And it’s not exhausting to establish these areas in the mean time, given the yard indicators and placards that so usually mark out Trump and Harris territory.

However it’s not attainable to reside in these separate political worlds eternally. These two sides are about to collide with the tough actuality of an election.

Nevertheless disputed, nonetheless contested, there must be a winner.

And when some right here study the eventual outcome and realise that tens of thousands and thousands of their fellow Individuals really feel very in another way to them, it is going to be a shock.

Each Trump and Harris have charted their very own historic and tumultuous paths to polling day.

I used to be among the many press pack gathered outdoors a Manhattan court docket to witness Trump’s arraignment in his prison hush-money trial in April. He was discovered responsible weeks later, turning into the primary former or sitting president to be convicted of a criminal offense. Many requested on the time: might a convicted felon actually reclaim the White Home?

However his authorized troubles and his declare that he was being intentionally focused by the Biden administration solely fuelled his marketing campaign and fired up his supporters. “They are not after me, they’re after you,” he would so usually say.

“They’re weaponising the prison justice system in opposition to their political enemies, and it isn’t proper,” one among his supporters instructed me outdoors the courthouse. “I’ll struggle for this man till the day I die,” one other mentioned.

A well-known sample emerged: with every indictment, his ballot rankings climbed and monetary donations poured in.

Simply suppose again to the second final 12 months when his mugshot was taken as a part of the election interference case in Georgia. It rapidly grew to become an iconic picture that now adorns lots of the T-shirts I see at Trump rallies.

And it’s inconceivable to recount the previous president’s wild experience to polling day with out the second that produced one other iconic picture and nearly ended the competition altogether.

When Trump was shot by a would-be murderer in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July, it shook this race and this nation profoundly. As he was helped to his ft by Secret Service brokers, blood pouring from his ear, he raised his fist within the air and urged his supporters to struggle.

When he appeared simply 48 hours later at his social gathering’s conference in Milwaukee with gauze over his ear, some within the crowd have been weeping. I might see tears rolling down the face of 1 delegate standing close to to me. It was Tina Ioane, who’d travelled from American Samoa.

“He’s the anointed,” she instructed me. “He was known as to steer our nation.”

At that stage in the summertime, electorally, Trump regarded unassailable.

On the opposite aspect, Democrats have been turning into more and more depressed about their very own prospects. Deeply anxious that their candidate, Joe Biden, was too outdated to win re-election.

I used to be within the press room watching his shambolic debate in opposition to Trump in late June. There was surprised silence as we watched Biden’s 50-year profession in politics primarily come to an finish in entrance of our eyes.

However even then, many who publicly instructed he ought to step apart have been dismissed. The Biden marketing campaign even hit out on the “bedwetting brigade” who have been calling for him to go.

It will, in fact, be a matter of time.

Simply days after that jubilant Republican conference in July, when Trump regarded like he couldn’t lose, Biden introduced he was giving up his re-election bid. The temper amongst Democratic supporters quickly swung from anxious pessimism to excited anticipation.

Any reservations that they had about whether or not Kamala Harris was their finest candidate have been erased at a joyful conference in Chicago a number of weeks later. Individuals who had been resigned to defeat have been now swept away on a tide of enthusiasm.

This election represented an opportunity to “transfer previous the bitterness, cynicism and divisive battles of the previous”, she mentioned to loud cheers.

However this burst of pleasure didn’t final. After an preliminary bump within the polls, Harris struggled to keep up the momentum. It seems she rapidly gained again conventional Democrats who weren’t backing Biden however discovered it tougher to win over essential undecided voters.

Harris, nonetheless, has repeatedly pushed that extra optimistic message. She has additionally made reproductive rights a cornerstone of her marketing campaign, and is hoping the problem will encourage ladies to end up in excessive numbers.

However the problem, as in all presidential elections, is to persuade the undecided.

I met Zoie Cheneau at a hair salon she owns in Atlanta, Georgia, lower than two weeks out from the election. She mentioned she had by no means been so unmotivated to vote.

“It is the lesser of two evils for me proper now,” she mentioned, explaining that she would in the end solid her poll for Harris however felt Trump might show higher for small companies.

“I might be excited {that a} black lady could be the president of america,” she mentioned. “And she’s going to win, I do know she’s going to win.”

Whereas some voters are anxious and consider this race to be shut, Ms Cheneau’s certainty concerning the eventual result’s one thing supporters on each side repeatedly specific.

Many Harris supporters merely can’t perceive why she will not be additional forward of a convicted prison who has been publicly attacked and derided by those that served in his final administration.

Trump supporters are equally aghast that anybody might vote for a candidate who has flip-flopped on coverage and has been within the White Home at a time when unlawful border crossings reached document ranges.

These two tribes exist in what seem like parallel political ecosystems, throughout a deep partisan divide the place opposing views are dismissed and the candidates encourage a loyal loyalty that goes past regular social gathering affiliation.

Voters have been given apocalpyptic warnings about what may occur if the opposite aspect wins. They have been instructed this election is about excess of who sits within the Oval Workplace for the subsequent 4 years. Many consider it’s an existential occasion that would have disastrous penalties.

There isn’t a doubt the tone of this marketing campaign has raised the stakes, ratcheting up nervousness and pressure, that means the aftermath of this election may very well be explosive. We expect authorized challenges and avenue protests could be a shock to nobody.

It is a nation cut up between opposing visions of what is at stake. However it’s within the polling stations that Purple and Blue America will meet and be counted.

Regardless of the outcome, roughly one half of the nation is about to find that the opposite half has a very totally different sense of what America requires.

For the losers, this might be a stinging realisation.