She’s not perfect but, unlike Donald Trump, there is nothing to fear about Kamala Harris

American politics came from revolution, and elections redefine the American nation, but Donald Trump has suborned the idea of renewal to his own authoritarian character and taken his country and the world into uncharted territory.

His ugly persona has not only overwhelmed us all, but with Americans voting in their most polarised presidential elections, it is clear Trump is no longer their problem alone. He threatens our world, too.

This election, the old verities and certainties have vanished. Trump has given us all the DTs: policy accounts for little; opinion polls are drivel; the billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post, the newspaper that once changed investigative journalism by exposing another corrupt US president, did not endorse a candidate, arguing it would be divisive; Trump’s ear took a bullet for democracy, but few could name the MAGA supporter who took the bullet for Trump.

Given the years of turmoil and tragedy his one presidential term imposed on his country, it beggars belief Trump is the Republican nominee.

All that remains of his four years in power is Trump. He built nothing for the future. But 400,000 died from COVID-19 during his presidency; his refusal to counter the virus with little other than bleach saw the richest nation record 1.2 million pandemic deaths. He was indicted twice and made lies, personal attacks and insults his political lingua franca. He showed such stunning contempt for the rule of law that, based on his own words, his second presidency would threaten America’s existence.

Internationally, he created chaos, cosying up to despots and advocating the abandonment of Ukraine. Trump spent the past four years maintaining his fiction of a 2020 election victory. Meanwhile, accusations and ongoing court cases bubbled on: he was found guilty of fraud and sexual abuse, and his behaviour when supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021, defies belief.

Trump is unfit for office. There are various reasons why, in terms of how he governed and the dreadful things he has said during the campaign, but January 6 should rule him out of the game. He’s a danger to democracy, global security and the economy. We should all be alarmed at the number of yes-men who would surround him should he win.

But the election is close. That’s because Trump is still tapping into a large group of people who, marginalised by economic and social change, feel the American Dream has failed them. Black men in particular feel used by the Democrats only when elections roll around; many second- and third-generation migrants are very unhappy with the runaway immigration; and many Americans are working multiple jobs to keep their heads above water. The failure of the US, and of its politics, to deal with these issues has given Trump a huge advantage.

Yet, as George Brandis astutely noted in the Herald, never have so many alarm bells been rung about a Republican candidate by so many conservatives. But this is part of Trump’s almost mesmeric appeal to his base. The more often he is denounced by respectable conservatives or members of the national security establishment, the more compelling his pose as the champion of the alienated. Far from being a conservative, Trump is a radical, a disruptor.

For much of the year, the election went Trump’s way. Then, having constantly attacked President Joe Biden’s age and capacity to be a second-term president, he was turned into an old man overnight when Biden saw sense and Kamala Harris stepped into the Democrat limelight.

Harris immediately took much of Trump’s oxygen and, suddenly, we had a contest. Instead of promising to take America back to a glorious Boomer past before immigrants had poisoned “the blood of our country”, Harris spoke to the present, to the future and of unity. “Let us show each other and the world who we are and what we stand for: freedom, opportunity, compassion, dignity, fairness and endless possibilities. We are the heirs to the greatest democracy in the history of the world and … we must be worthy of this moment,” Harris said accepting the Democratic nomination in August.

In the final weeks of the campaign, both received celebrity endorsements who personified the candidates’ different visions and preoccupations. Harris supporters included Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Bruce Springsteen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Eminem and Julia Louis Dreyfus. Hulk Hogan, Mel Gibson, Buzz Aldrin, Russell Brand and Elon Musk came out for Trump.

And while she stumped, he shocked for attention.

Harris, held to a higher standard than her opponent, stayed on message like a well-versed stateswoman. But Trump weaved fact, fiction, racial abuse, sexism and graphic schoolyard crudity with admiration for Hannibal Lecter and accusations of immigrants eating American pets while ramping up his violent rhetoric. Many were outraged. Not his followers, though. Having drunk the Kool-Aid laced with bleach, they either think he is joking or care little if he isn’t.

In this US election, stability itself may be the biggest issue at stake. But that has not stopped Harris and Trump from spelling out their parties’ traditional positions on issues such as taxation, trade and regulation that are well within the give and take of politics.

She promised to increase the top marginal tax rate; he promised a 20 per cent tariff on all foreign-made goods (including Australian), 60 per cent for China, and he floated tariffs of 200 per cent on foreign cars; she says the US should be a leader on tackling climate change, he said it is a hoax; she will stay with Europe, NATO, Ukraine and AUKUS; him, not so much, and his likely abandonment of Ukraine is of huge concern; their Middle East responses are both mired in local US politics.

Their keynote pitches: she has been most vocal about ensuring women have access to abortion, he wants to deport millions of immigrants.

It is in the world’s interests that the US gets its act together. America is too big to fail. The West wants capitalism and the free market to endure, while China needs a stable world to sell its goods. We all know what we are getting with Harris’ stateswoman sincerity. But Trump, though he did not rock many boats as president, specialises in ambiguity and confusion.

Trump barely went away when he lost in 2020. Everybody knows what they will be getting with him a second time. Doomsayers believe him to be an existential threat to democracy whose corruption and lawlessness go beyond elections and, unrestrained by the Republicans, that he will mount an all-out attack on the structures of American government and the democratic institutions that act as checks on presidential power.

We are told seven states will decide the US election and they represent a remarkable cross-section of American society, with large Hispanic, black and white populations. Given this lop-sided contest between innocuous good and palpable evil, we can only repeat Michelle Obama’s question: “Why on earth is this race even close?”

Unlike Trump, there is nothing to fear about Harris. She is a sane choice. Regrettably, she has yet to define herself properly, and it remains unclear how she would be different to Biden. Nor has she talked enough about the economy and national security. But it would be wonderful to finally break the glass ceiling and to end the Trump era for good.

Bevan Shields sends an exclusive newsletter to subscribers each week. Sign up to receive his Note from the Editor.