President Trump’s late-night declaration of victory before he had earned it was an act of political sacrilege. It was also ruthlessly focused, the opening move of a scorched-earth strategy long-prepared by his inner circle should he be at risk of losing the vote.
His allegation of a giant “fraud on the American people” was not a reckless off-the-cuff remark in the heat of the moment. Leaked tapes from his
Election Day Operations team leave no doubt that this gambit was pre-planned, a calculated move to discredit in advance what he knew would be a late surge of Democrat votes as postal ballots are counted.
This "blue shift" syndrome has become a pattern of US elections, and vastly more so this year after 100 million people voted by mail or in advance.
Trump has striven for weeks to taint postal votes and to impugn the credibility of the US electoral system - breathtaking chutzpah given that he controls the Justice Department, and that Republicans dominate the executive machinery of swing states.
He urged his supporters to vote only in person, aiming to create an even greater cleavage between the party colouring of the two sets of ballots that could then be exploited. This has been his strategy ever since Joe Biden pulled ahead in the polls.
It led to the spectacle that we have all just witnessed: an early Trump lead in several states evaporating later. It is an invitation to conspiracy theories, all assiduously amplified on social media, with militia waiting in the wings.