Is this election about to break America?

The 'city on a hill' is laying siege to itself

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at a campaign canvassing event in Scranton. AP Photo

President Donald Trump speaks to campaign workers at the RNC Annex in Arlington, Virginia. Bloomberg

A member of the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club rides a horse down 52nd Street to encourage people to vote in Philadelphia. Bloomberg

A poll worker poses for a picture in the Entertainment and Sports Arena in Southeast Washington, DC. EPA

A jogger carries a Vote! flag as he passes a polling station in San Antonio. AP

Voters line up at the Trenton Town Hall during Election Day in Trenton, Wisconsin, U.S. Reuters

A young boy waits for his father to cast his ballot at Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut. AFP

Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden, waves from the front steps of his childhood home, during an early visit on Election Day, in Scranton. AP Photo

First lady Melania Trump arrives to vote at the Morton and Barbara Mandel Recreation Centre, in Palm Beach, Fla. AP Photo

Voters wear face-coverings while waiting in line to vote for the 2020 US elections at the Los Angeles County Registrar in Norwalk, California. AFP

The White House is seen at sunrise during the election day, in Washington. Reuters

Voters queue at the Waterville Junior High School polling station before doors open on the election day in Waterville, Maine. Reuters

Voters wait in line at a polling station on election day in Winchester, Virginia, early on Tuesday, November 3, 2020. AFP

Selectman Les Otten drops a ballot in a box shortly after midnight for the US presidential election at the Hale House at Balsams Hotel in the hamlet of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. Reuters

A board shows results of ballots cast shortly after midnight for the US presidential election at the Hale House at Balsams Hotel in the hamlet of Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. Reuters

A woman casts her vote at the Hazel Parker Playground on election day in Charleston. AFP

An election official stands near the ballot boxes at Ballard High School in Louisville. AFP

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at John F. Kennedy Library in Miami, Florida. AFP

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden departs on election day in Wilmington, Delaware. Reuters

A volunteer with Democracy North Carolina sits to answer questions at Waddell Language Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina, shortly after the polls opened. AFP

People wait in line to vote in Portland, Maine. AFP

Voters wait in line to cast their ballots at the old Stone School, used as a polling station, on election day in Hillsboro, Virginia. AFP

Voters wait in line adhering to distancing rule to cast their ballots on election day in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Reuters

Poll manager Susan Taylor wears shoes with the word 'Vote' as she checks people in to vote at the Hazel Parker Playground on election day in Charleston. AFP

Cookies representing the presidential candidates for sale at the Oakmont Bakery in Oakmont, Pennsylvania. AFP

A person votes in a socially distanced space in Portland, Maine. AFP

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden salutes as he leaves Scranton, Pennsylvania. AFP

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden(R) visits Hanks Hoagies in Scranton, Pennsylvania. AFP

Voters wait in a long line to cast their ballots at Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Reuters

Donovan Faison, a 27-year-old first-time voter, wears an unusual mask and sunglasses as he feeds his ballot into a tabulator machine after voting at a polling station during the election in Durham, Durham County, North Carolina. Reuters

Voters mark their ballots at First Presbyterian Church on Election Day, in Stamford, Conn. AP Photo

An election inspector checks the names of voters as the counting of ballots begins on Election Day at City Hall in Warren, Michigan., in Macomb County. AP Photo

Voters line up before polls open on Election Day at a precinct in Warren, Michigan. AP Photo

Erin Doherty hugs her mother Susanna Dew, 61, who is voting for the first time in her life, as they wait in line at a polling place on election day in the Mid City section of New Orleans. AP Photo

Voters mark their ballots at Bloomfield United Methodist Church in Des Moines, Iowa. AFP

The 2020 question bigger than Donald Trump or Joe Biden is whether the last four years and a bruising campaign have broken American democracy, that over-200-year-old experiment that – at least in its own eyes – sets the US apart.

The US election was once watched around the world as an example of what democracy means, a shining specimen that America could hold aloft to dictators and detractors, as it encouraged the fledgeling post-Soviet democracies or assisted transitions elsewhere, that it could nurture as an ideal to be perused around the world.

But from the outside, there is little to look upon in the 2020 campaign and envy.

This year, America has faced some fundamental questions that might bend the very essence of what it is as a country.

Unsubstantiated claims of mass voter fraud have now become so common that they are treated in some circles of the press and Mr Trump’s followers as an established, self-evident truth. Worries abound of violence, of attacks and of armed militias intimidating voters. Questions are even being raised now that no other US election needed answering – what happens if a president refuses to step down?

These aren’t fringe ideas or the musings of hypothetical thought experiments. In August, Gen Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress that the US military – the single most powerful-armed force on the planet – would have no role in the election process or resolving any electoral disputes.

So it is fair to ask, is American democracy broken? Has that shining city on a hill gone dark?

As of Election Day itself, that answer is no – but there’s still time.

2020 has been a lively race, perhaps more so than any other in living memory. Even before the polls opened, lawyers were litigating who, how and when people could vote – and very few saw arguments either way as an endeavour to improve the democratic experiment rather an attempt tilt the favour through technicalities.

But lively democracy is still democracy. Votes are still cast, a rule of law still applies and – as yet – there are no substantiated claims of the kinds of ballot stuffing, disenfranchisement and violence that millions of voters must contend with from Baghdad to Minsk.

There will be a winner after November 4 and – even though Mr Trump may not say it openly – whoever wins will, in all likelihood, enter the White House on January 20 without a new civil war, without military intervention and quite possibly without the Supreme Court being consulted.

But none of that diminishes the very fundamental questions for whoever occupies the White House next year but also the Senate and House of Representatives – also up for election on Tuesday.

How do politicians return to a time when the system was more important than who won? How do you ease the burning existential dread that means winning must come at any cost?

Unfortunately, there is little sign, yet, that this campaign has done anything to heal the deep divides between right and left, rich and poor, between generations, between those who believe in racial equality and those who see no issue that needs resolving.

It is fairly clear that if one side wins on Tuesday, that question won’t even be raised. But, if the other side wins, there’s no indication of how they might go about doing it.

The question that is more worrying from the outside is not whether 2020 broke American democracy but whether the next four years will.

If he wins, as the polls tip him to, Mr Biden has four years to prove that there is something to inspire unity in the sort of diligent, hand’s on sensible talking president of old that he portrays himself to be.

Otherwise, hot on the heels of Mr Trump’s shoot-from-the-hip populism, a truly terrifying populist force could emerge in 2024 to shred any remaining convention and not just undermine the straining system but pull it down wholesale.

In its weakened, divided and uninspiring state, such a force could very well snuff out that 200-year-old American democratic experiment.

James Haines-Young is foreign editor at The National