Donald Trump, America’s howling id, has not lost this election. Then again, Joe Biden has not won it. Shortly before 6am UK time, Biden addressed a rally – never a better time for one, mate – and told the Delaware crowd he was “optimistic”. In split-screen Trump addressed his Twitter retinue, and told them of “a big WIN”, adding “they are trying to STEAL the election … votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed.” Expect him to invade Pole-land in the coming days.

Still, whatever happens now, no one can argue that a result this close was a repudiation of his way of doing business, so anyone expecting the gibberingly loyal Republican party to tack away from its current psychiatric space for the next couple of decades ought probably to get used to disappointment.

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Militia fears, a barricaded presidential compound, open calls to disenfranchise voters – it’s a mood very much borrowed from what Trump would call “shithole countries”. As the weeks unfold, please don’t rule out Donald’s two large adult sons – Uday and Schmuday – downing a Black Hawk within the White House autonomous zone. Already, expectations have been so profoundly commuted that if gun-toting convoys of Klansmen aren’t firing celebratory rounds into the sky from vehicle convoys by the time this article is published, it’ll be regarded as a positive.

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Should Biden edge a victory, thanks to the way the self-styled greatest democracy in the world works, we will have months of grimly incendiary Trump claims that it was stolen. Or, to put it in terms the rest of the planet would understand: this is like winning the World Cup in November, then having the losing captain use it as a toilet for three months before finally handing the brimming trophy over to you in late January.