So, the “October surprise” in the 2024 US presidential election was… that there was no surprise. Eight years ago, the Access Hollywood video and hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's campaign manager landed on the same dayOctober 7, 2016. At the time, it seemed genuinely surprising that Russians would interfere in a U.S. election to help a candidate who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy. And that this candidate goes on and wins. Those were the days.

This time, October culminated in a stunt: Donald Trump, dressed in a high-visibility vest, casually leaned out the window of a giant garbage truck and answered questions about Puerto Rico. “No one has done more for Puerto Rico than me. I took care of them when they had the big hurricanes,” he said, referring to 2017, when he was president and did the exact opposite: He delayed aid after two storms reportedly hit the island because he saw the population as not loyal enough.

Such falsification of facts no longer surprises us. Unfortunately, neither is the hyperbolic rhetorical arms race that spawned the garbage truck stunt in the first place. It all started with a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden in New York, where a comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of trash” during a series of warm-up acts. Then President Biden hit back in a Zoom call with a group of Latino voters. “The only trash I see out there is his (Trump’s) supporters,” he said.

Remember when Hillary Clinton said she had put half of Trump's supporters in a “basket full of deplorables”? In an election in which the outcome is decided by a razor-thin majority of undecided voters, it makes little sense to describe half of the voters as “trash.”

The White House clarified, somewhat unconvincingly, that Biden had meant only one supporter – the comedian; Kamala Harris promised to be a president for all Americans. But the damage was done: “trash” was the new “deplorable.”

JD Vance, the vice presidential candidate, tweeted: “This is disgusting. Kamala Harris and her boss Joe Biden are attacking half the country.” (Hours earlier, Vance had defended the comedian's “garbage” joke, saying, “We will not restore the greatness of American civilization if we fret over every little thing. “

Meanwhile, on the Harris-supporting network MSNBC, they aired black-and-white footage of Americans giving Hitler salutes at a pro-Nazi rally in New York in 1939 and darkly emphasizing that Trump was “once again turning Madison Square Garden into a place.” would transform”. a breeding ground for extremism.”

After all, didn’t his former chief of staff call him a fascist? Didn't Trump himself talk about using the military to fight the “enemy within” – the people led by Harris, whom he called Marxists and communists?

Here we have landed, just days away from possibly the most consequential election in American history, one that is supposedly about the survival of democracy: if the candidates themselves are to be believed, the choice is between fascists and Marxists, between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Neither sounds very democratic.

With just a few days until Election Day, there may still be time to sit down and breathe into a paper bag. The good news is that Trump is about as much of a Nazi as Harris is a Marxist. The language of 1930s Germany may be useful for angering a crowd, but it is inadequate for attempting to understand the complex dynamics of America in 2024.

That's not to say the choice in Tuesday's election isn't serious. This is true, and the result can have far-reaching consequences. At the international level, Trump has promised to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement (again); His promise to end Russia's war in Ukraine looks like it will mean pressuring Kiev to cede significant parts of its territory to Moscow – not a good democratic prospect for the people who live there.

At home, millions of American women fear a further erosion of their rights to have an abortion, access contraceptives or even seek medical treatment for a miscarriage. Gilead, Margaret Attwood's misogynistic dystopia, seems to be just on the horizon.

Then there's Project 2025, a 922-page blueprint for a second Trump administration drawn up by the Heritage Foundation think tank. The Trump campaign has distanced itself from the document, but much of it was written by people who served in his first administration and may serve in a second term.

If Trump wins, there is a strong chance that he will try to implement some of his proposals. These include dismantling the administrative state, replacing apolitical officials with ideological loyalists, and placing independent federal agencies such as the Justice Department under the president's direct control. If Trump was If someone were able to implement such sweeping changes (there would be significant legal, political, and institutional hurdles to overcome), then American democracy might actually start to feel a little shaky.

On the other hand, if Trump loses, will he back down? Trump continues to claim that the 2020 election was stolen. Tens of millions of Americans believe him. The fact that there is no credible evidence to support such a claim does not diminish the validity of their belief. If he doesn't back down this time, his supporters may decide that democracy is already dead and take matters into their own hands. This is clearly dangerous.

Which of the two possible outcomes of Tuesday's election is more likely to result in the survival of America's current democratic system? In any case, the threat seems tangible. But remember: American democracy has already had a Trump presidency and has a lot to tell.

The United States is a complex and mature republic with public institutions and private interests whose power far exceeds Trump's, even the power of the Oval Office.

Both sides agree on one challenge: the greatest threat to America's power and prosperity is China.

In fact, both sides largely agree that the key to countering the Chinese threat lies in good old American dynamism—the combination of innovation, capital and drive that made the United States the preeminent force of the 20th century. This dynamic has declined in recent decades. The key difference between the two sides is how to revive the whole thing.

Democrats broadly believe that state power, the power of the U.S. federal government, is the tool that can best combine the forces of private capital, public spending and innovation to address the threat. However, the faction currently in power in the Republican Party believes that the federal government is sclerotic and plagued by corruption, vested interests and incompetence.

Among Maga followers, this belief often manifests itself in conspiracy theories. QAnon, the widespread conspiracy theory about a cabal of satanic pedophiles secretly running America, helped drive the mob to the capital on January 6, 2021. Three years after this event, a poll found that more than 40 percent of Americans believe that hidden hands are pulling the strings behind the scenes in government.

As Election Day approaches, prominent figures in the Trump campaign have been actively promoting such conspiracy theories.

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has poured more than $100 million (£77 million) into the Trump campaign. At a recent rally in Pennsylvania (a key swing state), he mused, “It would be interesting to see the overlap between the Epstein client list and Kamala's puppet masters.”

Who knows if Musk really believes this nonsense? But we do know that if he wins, Trump has asked Musk to head a “Department of Government Efficiency.” Musk believes in SpaceX rather than NASA: that private companies are better suited to revitalize American dynamism.

The push for more corporate power (in a country where corporate power is already strong) seems to point to less power for voters and their democratically elected representatives. In this sense, the prospect of a second Trump presidency does indeed appear to represent a challenge to democracy.

But American democracy is already in the grip of big corporate money in many ways. And with Republicans threatening to dismantle America's administrative institutions, Democrats have become the party of the status quo.

The question is whether the status quo is working; whether it serves its purpose, whether it is up to the challenge of keeping the American dream alive.

Gabriel Gatehouse presents The Coming Storm on Radio 4. His book “The Coming Storm: A Journey into the Heart of the Conspiracy Machine” is out now and published by Penguin