Presidential candidates always hype the coming election as the most important in our lifetimes. This time it might be true.

An already divided nation is making its choice between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden with fraught political divides exacerbated by the worst public health crisis in a century. It is also facing a consequent economic slump that has cost millions of Americans their jobs and a still unresolved reckoning over race and police brutality.

Whether Trump gets one or two terms in office will decide if his shocking, untamed Republican presidency is an aberration in modern political history or can more permanently transform America and the world in his own disruptive image.

A victory for Biden, the Democratic nominee, would end the constant gut calls, staffing chaos and continuous assaults on truth, science, fact and evidence in every sphere of national life. It would see a return to a more traditional head of state who is vowing to unite the country, create a new spirit of hope and restore compassion to the White House.

Trump has made clear that becoming the first impeached president to win reelection would cause him to unleash a far purer form of his hardline nationalist ideology, and he may be all but unstoppable in his effort to fully weaponize the institutions of the US government to his own goals and whims.

Vindicated by victory, the President would likely double down on crusades against “elites” and warnings that White America is in danger of being overwhelmed by changing demographics. He is likely to be even more devoted to his loyal supporters who see his calls to lock up his opponents and blame doctors over Covid-19 deaths as the embodiment of the wrecking machine they sent to destroy the Washington establishment in 2016.

His victory, after trailing for months in the polls, would be yet another staggering thumb in the eye to pollsters and media commentators who predicted he was heading for defeat and would confirm his unorthodox yet uncanny and unique political talent for channeling the fears and views of millions of Americans.

Four more years would give Trump more time to turn the government to the pursuit of his own personal goals. Trump’s complaints, for instance, that Attorney General William Barr — who has appeared to pursue the President’s political priorities since taking office — is insufficiently attuned to his wishes hint at a future government staffed purely by his acolytes. Such an approach would almost certainly erode Constitutional structures that even at times of political angst have largely guaranteed American political freedoms.

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The President, however, is billing the election as the last chance to save the individual liberties of the millions of Americans who put him in office — and whom he has ostentatiously courted ever since.

“The forgotten men and women of our country will never ever be forgotten again and you know that and you saw that,” Trump said as part of an exhaustive campaign trail final swing in Minnesota on Friday.

“Four years ago we had a very, very exciting time, this is even more exciting and frankly, this is a more important election and I never thought I’d be saying that … This is it. This is the history of our nation, this is a very, very big moment for our country.”

The President, however, is billing the election as the last chance to save the individual liberties of the millions of Americans who put him in office — and whom he has ostentatiously courted ever since.

“The forgotten men and women of our country will never ever be forgotten again and you know that and you saw that,” Trump said as part of an exhaustive campaign trail final swing in Minnesota on Friday.

“Four years ago we had a very, very exciting time, this is even more exciting and frankly, this is a more important election and I never thought I’d be saying that … This is it. This is the history of our nation, this is a very, very big moment for our country.”

How Trump would change the country

The most immediate impact of a second Trump term would likely be on the management of the Covid-19 crisis, a deepening disaster that the White House has largely stopped trying to contain. The estrangement between the President and the government’s top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci — who in a Washington Post interview said that the US is heading “for a whole lot of hurt” — now seems past mending. A policy that looks more like herd immunity appears more likely if the President wins. That approach, which experts say could cost hundreds of thousands of lives, is advocated by Trump’s favored adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, who is not an infectious disease expert. Even if Trump loses, in a dark winter until the inauguration in January, Trump hardly seems inclined to aggressively adopt policies to combat the virus that he refused to put into place when he was running for a second term and denying the threat.

On policy, a Trump win would prioritize swift economic recovery over any effort to slow the pandemic that is now as bad as it has ever been. His victory would have consequences for the health plans of millions of Americans, enshrine hardline immigration policies, could prolong the national dislocation he has fostered over race and will reverberate far beyond American shores among hundreds of millions of people who have no say in an election that shapes their lives. On health care, for example, Trump has still not said how he would replace Obamacare — which faces its next date with destiny at the Supreme Court next week — or how he would guarantee coverage for those with pre-existing conditions after destroying the marketplace system that allows insurance companies financial leeway to provide such coverage.

The election is crucial to the political aspirations of millions of heartland voters who didn’t necessarily embrace his vulgarity but believed he delivered on his promise to stand up for “forgotten Americans” devastated by globalization. If Trump wins reelection by performing better than polls suggest he will in the Midwest, he will have these voters to thank.