BY this time next week we will likely know the outcome of the US presidential election.

For so long now it seems the Land of the Free has also been home of the fractious. As the world has looked on, sometimes with incredulity, the United States has appeared anything but united.

Over decades America has been a highly partisan nation, with Republicans and Democrats

splitting political support. It’s fair to say too that it is no stranger to devastating public division that often coincides with upcoming presidential elections.

But few would deny that this time around things are as serious and the stakes as high as they have been in living memory.

For one thing there has been a perfect storm of multiple crises, the most obvious of which is the coronavirus pandemic that has cost the lives of 210,000 Americans and the economy millions of jobs. Then there have been the street protests over racism and police brutality and widespread rioting.

And topping all this off, most recently the country has witnessed a bitter fight over the appointment of a judge to the Supreme Court, a body that might very well be asked to decide the very election on which America is about to embark should it face a subsequent constitutional crisis.

At the heart of all this disquiet is President Donald Trump whose arrival in the White House in 2016 quite simply turned a previously healthy political partisanship into noxious polarisation.

For Americans of whatever political stripe, it’s one thing to disagree about something like tax policy, but something else entirely when differences boil down to those of basic morality, core values and the character of their president.

It might seem an odd comparison but listening to some ordinary Americans speak right now of decades-long friendships caving in under the pressure of political differences is to be reminded of Britain back in 1984 -85 when opinions and actions during the miner’s strike often divided family and friends.

Come to think of it it’s not that dissimilar to the UK today where a Tory Government hell-bent on charging through with Brexit and utterly incompetent in handling the pandemic is stoking political division the length and breadth of the country.

If the break-up of the UK looks increasingly on the cards, then so too in America the country’s future remains uncertain in the wake of next week’s election whatever its outcome.

For many Americans, so high have the stakes become – the alternatives so stark and consequences so potentially profound – that it would be no exaggeration to say emotions in many instances are running to the point of hatred.

To put this in some kind of context, a recent survey by the Pew Research Centre, a US think tank specialising in social issues and public opinion showed that nearly 80% of Americans now have “just a few” or no friends at all across the political aisle, and the animosity goes both ways.

Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden knows this. That much was evident these past few days as he swept into the state of Georgia to make a direct pitch to voters who flocked to Trump in 2016, urging them to give him a chance to “heal” the country.

“The divisions in our nation are getting wider. Anger and suspicion are growing. Our wounds are getting deeper,” Biden said in the appropriately named city of Warm Springs.

“Has it gone too far? Have we passed the point of no return?” he went on to ask rhetorically, before suggesting this was not the case and that healing and unity are still possible.

But just in the same way that Biden knows that healing is a necessity for America’s future wellbeing, so too should he win next week, be doubtless acutely aware that the frustrations of many Americans that propelled Trump to the presidency have not disappeared.

As I write, the Democratic Party hopeful might be riding high in the polls, but the awkward question remains of how much of this comes from a liking for Biden rather than Trump’s shameful mishandling of the pandemic? Let’s not forget that right up until early spring and the onslaught of the coronavirus, Trump’s chances of returning for a second term were close to even.

READ MORE: Donald Trump in freeze-out of his own support in key state

Among many people who think and write about politics, there is often the assumption that truth and reason will always prevail within democracies. Since becoming US president however, Trump has shifted the goalposts in this regard.

Three scenarios could unfold in the wake of next week’s vote. In no particular order of likelihood the first is that Trump wins again and America continues on its toxic trajectory.

The second is that he loses but contests the outcome through the postal ballot, forcing recounts – stirring up yet more bitterness and invoking recriminations.

There would then be every possibility that under the skewed US electoral college, Trump could lose the popular vote by millions yet use his office’s legal clout to rig the system.

All too aware of this many Americans are taking no chances, with roughly 60 million of them having already posted their votes. While in some swing states, such as Florida, they can be counted as soon as they arrive, in others such as Pennsylvania, that process can only begin after polling stations have closed.

Which brings us of course to the third scenario, the one whereby Joe Biden wins by a popular margin, neutering any chance of Trump carrying out nefarious political manoeuvrings or actions post-election.

“With our voices and our votes, we must free ourselves from the forces of darkness, from the forces of division, and from the forces of yesterday,” was how Biden summed up that challenge speaking in Georgia this week

For many Americans it will be a welcome sign of a prospective president who will take that job seriously. But not all will buy into such a call for unity, so deeply entrenched are they now in their support for Trump and the often hate-filled policies he has allowed to take root.

The stark reality here is inescapable. In the years ahead and even with the best of intentions, whoever next inhabits the White House will find it far from easy to heal a deeply wounded America.