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.

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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.