And so it begins. With the days and nights flipped around because of the time zones, their mornings unfolding across our evenings, their days parading events in the wee hours of our nights. I check for when the first results will start solidifying on the networks and go to sleep, not daring to pray or allow myself too much hope. Sure enough, when I wake up and look, the polls have closed on most of the US east coast and the mid-west. For someone of my political leanings, the news is bad: there is no ‘blue wave’, there is no Democratic landslide, no liberal earthquake overturning the red-owned real estate in the Senate. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are running neck and neck, the usual suspect states at that point all falling neatly into familiar piles, the usually Democratic north-east and west coast going to Biden, the vast swathes in the centre of the United States of America painted red as if with a large roller. And then there is damage: Florida goes quickly to the owner of its Mar-a-Lago Club who’s been using it as a third presidential palace for the last four years; Biden hasn’t been able to mount much of a challenge in this key battleground state. Texas flipping to the Democrats? Forget it. Above Florida, Georgia is a deep pink, indicating a Republican lead. Slicing into the unevenly demarcated mess of blue states in the top right-hand corner, the rectangle of Pennsylvania, too, is the colour of raw meat.

On the infographics pages, the House seats are about even as are the ones in the Senate. On the chart for the presidential election, the blue band is well short of the halfway point of 270 electoral votes while the red is moving in robustly from the right. And yet, the bloggers on the Dem-leaning newspaper sites of The Guardian and The New York Times and the anchors of the American networks critical of Trump show no outbreaks of sweat or despondency. ‘Wait, wait, wait!’ they all seem to be saying in a chorus, ‘these are still the walk-in votes from November 3, the postal ballots are still to be counted.’ At some point, Arizona and Nevada start to move in an unexpected direction, like a cricket ball reverse swinging at the last moment. Instead of the expected pink or red, the two western states develop a bluish tinge. Some pesky child with access to websites across the world picks up a deep blue crayon and clumsily colours in the blank chunks around the Great Lakes: Illinois, Wisconsin... and then Michigan too. Is it a mistake or has Wisconsin flipped back to the Dems? No, it’s correct. What about Michigan, with its armed militias parading around the State Capitol brandishing assault rifles, its extremist gangs planning to kidnap the governor? Well, they are who they are but Detroit, for instance, has voted 94 per cent for Biden; Michigan is blue.

The jokes and arguments have all been made. Why bother so much about the American election? What great difference will it make to us in India? Do you really think if Biden wins it will make any great difference to the world? Americans can elect who they want as president, and these men can have slightly different policies at home, benign or injurious, but upon the rest of the world US presidents have mostly inflicted varying degrees of misery. You’re so caught up with the other side of the planet but you have no idea what is happening next door in Bihar! All valid points and questions, but still, the toxic orange hazardous waste has to be put in a bin and sealed before it causes more harm.

On day 3, John King of CNN is showing incredible stamina; it’s a wonder his hand hasn’t fallen off from clawing at the huge touch screen to bring up the changing numbers. The names of obscure counties are now grooved into the ear: Maricopa, Elko, Allegheny, Lackawanna, Taliaferro. King’s repeated mantra plays in the dreams: ‘People have voted and we have to count those votes. That’s what we do. We count ’em.’ At some point, Georgia see-saws slowly to an even keel — the votes are tied. The lying complaints and whining have long started to emerge from Trump and his sycophants. Anderson Cooper has compared Trump to a fat turtle flailing on its back. At some point, Biden’s tortoise crawls past Trump’s supine hare in Pennsylvania, rolls past and keeps going. On day 4, even Fox News is obliged to call the election for Biden-Harris and dancing breaks out on the streets of America.

Trump unleashes his legal war dogs and goes off to play golf. The dogs circle around, sniffing each other while the nation celebrates, or at least the record 75 million people who voted for Biden and Harris do. The Republicans, greedy and dishonest to the last, join Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping in maintaining a baleful silence while Trump’s legal hounds figure out how to convince the courts, the voting public, and the world that the Democrats have somehow stolen the presidential election, rigged it while sportingly neglecting to flush people like Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell down the gutter and capture majority in the Senate, or sweep the House. No doubt some narrative describing this laser-bomb-precise ballot heist will trickle out of the Orange Fake News HQ in the coming days. No doubt we will be told how this Great Ballot Robbery was conducted across several states ruled by both Democrats and Republican governors.

Many of us here in India will know exactly where to put these whopping lies broadcast by a debased leadership: right next to the claims of the great benefits of demonetization, tales of bold retaliatory air-strikes that kill hundreds of jihadis and claims of how demonstrably non-violent activists started violent riots. We are used to being told in the middle of the darkest night that we are actually looking at a shining dawn.

As we watch this sordid attempt at retaining power play out, we have to hope that it will be possible to limit the damage Trump and his coterie can add to the devastation they have already inflicted. That they are now quickly disconnected from the huge power they should never ever have wielded. One brick prised out of a wall loosens surrounding ones, and prising Trump out of the White House could well be a start to bringing down the wall of despotism that scars the planet.