Within hours we will know how the world's biggest reality TV show ends. After months of salaciousness and disgust interspersed with lies and disbelief, this voyeuristic spectacle will culminate when up to 218,959,000 Americans take one side or the other in a contest where truth has meant little and the recognition of the risks involved even less.
Americans could decide to elect their first female president, Hillary Clinton, just eight years after electing their first African-American one, Barack Obama. A victory for the Democrat candidate would inspire billions of women and girls across the globe, not to mention billions of fathers who only want their daughters to get a fair go.
A Hillary Clinton victory would inspire billions of women and girls around the world.Credit:AP
Or the Americans could choose Donald Trump, a candidate displaying the Republican brand but defying the once-sturdy foundations of the Grand Old Party's policy platform.
No one should be surprised it has come to this. Brexit, Hansonism and Trump all aim to, in the Republican outsider's words, "drain the swamp" of the political system to eradicate insiders like Mrs Clinton, political correctness and the fat cats in Brussels.
The angry core of the US community – mostly white men without a college degree – may well rise up against Mrs Clinton in record numbers. Early voter turnout suggests a deep well of anger wanting to vent, one way or the other.
We understand why Americans fear for their jobs amid technological disruption and freer trade; for their safety amid terrorism. We see why they wish for the US to withdraw into a safe self, how things once were; and why they feel that at present there are two Americas, with them living in the land Washington forgot.
Mr Trump plays to those concerns perfectly. "She's the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the US," he told a rally in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on Sunday after the FBI cleared his rival over more emails. "Clinton will be under investigation for a long time for the many crimes against her [name]. It's a rigged system and she's protected."
Those who accept the Trump narrative will simply not accept that the FBI, having handed them a conspiracy-affirming bolster through the Anthony Weiner emails link to Mrs Clinton, has fully examined the messages and ruled out any charges. "Lock her up, lock her up," remains the rallying cry.
Those who buy into the Trump version of reality will simply not accept any suggestion that his economic plan may well set the US back and destabilise world growth. They will not countenance that his planned rethink of the US presence in Japan and South Korea would empower China and Russia, perhaps adding a nuclear option.
But we hope another angry core rises up against Mr Trump and what he represents. Hispanics have every reason to reject him because they stand to be stigmatised and economically isolated even further. Black Americans stand to be branded and their rights trampled even further. Middle-class families who need growth, a social safety net and respect for US foreign policy to survive in a relatively peaceful world stand to find their future prospects even less secure.
And women have every reason to believe Mr Trump does not represent what the US should be. Four weeks ago we said the Republican candidate should drop out of the race because he had shown a slipshod understanding of sexual assault and disrespected so many US voters on the basis of race, gender and religion. Beyond limiting his Twitter rants, Mr Trump has not changed since.
The world, however, would not end if he became president. The US has political and economic institutions strong enough to withstand recessions, wars, protest movements, religious divides, natural disasters and terrorist attacks. A Trump America would simply become even more hateful, unstable and unpredictable in a time of rapid change when understanding, stability and predictability were most required.
The best outcome is for Hillary Clinton to win decisively. Notwithstanding her flaws and missteps in a long political career, she is by far the best option for the US, Australia, the world economy and Asia-Pacific stability. We hope she can put an end to the politics of hatred festering in the Trump swamp by listening to the US people who feel ignored by the system.
The worst outcome, however, would be a very close result that delivered neither Mrs Clinton nor Mr Trump the authority or respect required to be an effective US president.