The contrast between the slender, refined Kamala Harris and the imposing, temperamental and excessive Donald Trump is striking. It is the head-on collision of two Americas that nothing – or almost nothing – can reconcile.

Back in 2017, against Hillary Clinton, the thundering billionaire from New York won the White House thanks to the votes of the “declassed whites” who populate what economists across the Atlantic call the “rust belts” – a reference to the de-industrialised areas that sprang up around medium-sized American cities at the turn of the new millennium. With their share of urban decay, social distress, and record unemployment rates, they are hitting hard at the working classes and the “white” middle classes, plunging them into the destitution and exclusion that were once the almost exclusive lot of “minorities”.

And, paradoxical as it may seem, Donald Trump continues to inspire the dreams of those left behind by globalisation. For, despite his characteristic excesses, his colourful personality, his divisive methods, and his sometimes-delirious declarations, the “bulldozer with the orange fuse” cannot be reduced to the caricature that the rest of the world has of him.

His excesses – particularly at the end of his term when he put the American institutions to a severe test by not acknowledging his defeat to Joe Biden – have left his promise to “make America great again” in tatters. American democracy certainly did not appear the better for it. But the social record of the first Trump administration, marked by “economic protectionism (or even patriotism)”, is impressive. So much so that action in favour of jobs and against soaring prices will be one of the keystones that could open the doors of the White House to Trump once again.

On the other side, Kamala Harris, who replaced Joe Biden at short notice at the end of July, has given hope to moderate voters. Her profile (woman, active, from “minorities”) and her reputation as a “stateswoman of integrity, hard-working and stubborn” were able to attract stubborn” appealed beyond the Democratic Party. A case in point is the support he has received from Liz Cheney, daughter of former neocon Vice-President Dick Cheney.

To prevent Trump from returning to the White House, Harris has two formidable trump cards: Fears for the institutions of American democracy, which could be shaken by Trump’s outrages. And the threats to civil rights (abortion rights, discrimination against minorities, etc.).

These issues are extremely divisive. As a result, the Trump-Harris clash threatens to deepen the “American divide”. – Because “the Republicans see the Democrats as Americans who have lost their sense of patriotism, who are manipulated by bizarre ideologies known as wokism. And the Democrats consider the Republicans to be reactionaries, old southerners who have not digested the Civil War, who are only interested in money”, as the eminent specialist in American history, André Kaspi, explains.

The electoral battle is therefore taking on the appearance of a fratricidal duel pitting the America of “those who work with their hands” against that of “those who work with their heads”, as Kenneth R. Weinstein so aptly summed it up.

It remains to be seen who will appear victorious from this duel, Trump or Harris? And what repercussions will the victory of one or the other have for the United States and, by ricochet, for the rest of the world?