Two Americas will go to the polls Tuesday — one believing President Trump is an existential dange…

Two Americas will go to the polls Tuesday one believing President TrumpDonald John TrumpJudge allows Trump police panel to publish report but with disclaimer Lady Gaga at Biden rally: Trump ‘believes his fame gives him the right to grab’ womenPelosi says House is prepared to decide president if election results are disputedMORE is an existential danger to democracy itself, the other seeing him as the victim of political chicanery and media prejudice.
The split in the nation goes deeper than during any other election campaign in living memory. 
The 2020 contest is not merely a disagreement over normal ideological or policy differences. Its a zero-sum struggle for victory between two political tribes that increasingly appear to inhabit different universes and dislike each other intensely.
Opinions about virtually every political issue, including the appropriate response to the coronavirus pandemic that has transformed daily life, break along partisan lines that have solidified into near-rigidity.
Trumps Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenLady Gaga at Biden rally: Trump ‘believes his fame gives him the right to grab’ womenPelosi says House is prepared to decide president if election results are disputedTillis-Cunningham race in NC could decide Senate majorityMORE, has cast the election as a battle for the soul of the nation. But that soul looks likely to face more trials this week, especially if Tuesdays results are close.
Ominous signs are popping up everywhere, pointing to a fraying of the national fabric.
Over the weekend, Trump supporters traveling in convoy caused traffic disruption on New Jerseys Garden State Parkway and on New Yorks Mario Cuomo Bridge. A Democratic event in Georgia was canceled out of fear of militia activity.
In perhaps the most high profile incident, a Biden campaign bus in Texas drew the hostile attention of Trump supporters. (Neither Biden nor his running mate Sen. Kamala HarrisKamala HarrisLady Gaga at Biden rally: Trump ‘believes his fame gives him the right to grab’ womenOmarosa backs Biden, predicts Trump will losePolls show Biden with edge over Trump in key statesMORE (D-Calif.) was on board.)
Exactly what happened next is in dispute, but there were allegations from Democrats that the Trumps loyalists had sought to slow the vehicle down or even run it off the road. 
I love Texas! the president wrote on Twitter, alongside a video of part of the incident.
That kind of sentiment from any other president would have sparked a days-long controversy. When, in 2009, then-President Obama merely said that police had acted stupidly by arresting a black Harvard professor, Henry Louis Gates, knowing he was in his own home, conservative pundits excoriated him at length.
But tweets from Trump appearing to gloat about intimidatory behavior have become just one more passing storm. During his first term in the White house he has rained insults down upon opponents, sought to cast the media as the enemy of the people and sparked numerous other furors, as when he suggested that the four non-white Democratic congresswomen known as The Squad should go back to where they came from.
Trump did eventually back off his assertion during the first presidential debate that the far-right Proud Boys should stand back and stand by for the elections result. But he has consistently sought to cast a shadow on the elections legitimacy.
Sources in Trumps orbit believe he is willing to declare victory on Election Night, even as key states remain undecided. Axios reported this plan at the weekend, drawing a denial by the president that even some people in his circle do not appear to believe.
Trumps attacks on the legitimacy of the election appear to have had an effect in terms of public opinion, too.
An Economist/YouGov poll conducted from Oct. 25-Oct. 27 asked 1,500 registered voters whether they had confidence that the election would be held fairly. Among Democrats, 50 percent said they had a great deal or quite a bit of confidence in that outcome. Among Republicans, the corresponding figure was notably lower, at 34 percent.
Democrats, meanwhile, were more skeptical about whether Trump would actually give up power in the event of a defeat at the polls. Sixty-two percent of Republicans thought it very or somewhat likely there would be a peaceful transition in this scenario. Only 43 percent of Democrats agreed.
In counterpoint to Democratic complaints about Trumps inflammatory rhetoric, Republicans highlight the disorder that has taken place around some street protests in recent months. In downtown Washington, parts of Manhattan and other major cities, many businesses have boarded up their storefronts in anticipation of trouble in the wake of the election result.
The nations polarization did not begin with Trump, of course. The United States had been on a course of deepening division for years before the president began his political ascent.
A study by the Pew Research Center in 2014 the middle of President Obamas second term found that the proportion of Democrats who said they held a very unfavorable view of the Republican Party, and vice versa, had more than doubled over the preceding two decades.
At that time, half of people with consistently conservative views and more than one-third of those with consistently liberalviews said it was important for them to live in a place where most people share my political views.
The presidents rise was helped along by those kinds of divisions, but his approach has surely accelerated it. 
On Monday, during his final full day of campaigning, the president referred to Obama and his 2016 opponent Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonOn The Money: Trump winning farm vote despite pinch of trade policies, pandemic | Pelosi says Democrats would fast-track ObamaCare, COVID-19 aid next year | Dow closes up more than 400 points on eve of Election DayPolls show Biden with edge over Trump in key statesGOP Senate campaign chairman: ‘Clear path’ to keeping Senate majorityMORE as criminals and one of his leading congressional foes, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam SchiffAdam Bennett SchiffTrump, Biden offer starkly different closing arguments on eve of electionCIA impeachment whistleblower forced to live under surveillance due to threats: reportIn our ‘Bizarro World’ of 2020 politics, the left takes a wrong turnMORE (D-Calif.) as a psycho.
Its little wonder, then, that the nation is bracing for impact as the election looms. 
A close result could see the process of declaring a winner drag on for days or weeks, if legal suits start flying.
Whatever the result, Americas wounds will not be easily bound up. The nation feels, instead, as if it is teetering on the brink of real peril.
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on Donald Trumps presidency