But some things are clear through the dust.

To state the blindingly obvious: America is polarised beyond healing.

Of course, there have been divisions between the left and the right in the past, but they have not seemed so deep and pervasive for a long time. They have not cut America quite so neatly down the middle, like a rip through the centre of the country.

Earlier in the week, the American ambassador to Australia, Arthur B. Culvahouse jnr, pointed to the 1960s and '70s when there were riots.

And he is right. There were riots in 1968, sparked by the assassination of Martin Luther King jnr and by opposition to the Vietnam War.

Violence is never far from politics in a country where guns and strong opinion are so prevalent. The tragedy of the Kennedy brothers testifies to that.

But the riots then were violent protests by particular groups within society - significant groups, it's true, but not a rift right down the middle of the country. The very basis of democracy was not threatened. The mainstream left and right talked to each other.

Now we are seeing the rise of the vigilante. As one Kansas City radio station described it earlier in the year: "Armed counter-protesters, mostly white and some members of the militia movement, have confronted anti-racism rallies in at least 33 states, according to a review of reporting and social media by Guns & America.

"Some say they're there to protect businesses. Others oppose the Black Lives Matter movement. Some have acted like police, stopping protesters and demanding identification."

Those forces are out there, and they can't be put back in the bottle easily. A substantial section of America on both the left and right does not see the law as the fundamental protection. They think the law is their law in their hands.

We have also learnt - relearnt - from this election that the punditocracy and the pollsters misjudge America.

None of the polls got the closeness of the race right. The best of them hedged their bets by offering probabilities of "routes to victory", but the idea that Texas was in play or that Joe Biden was the one to beat in Florida now seems ridiculous.

It is clear, to me at least, that journalists and pontificators need to get out more. Too many live in a metropolitan bubble of like-minded wokeness.

It seemed incredible to them that anyone could vote for a vulgar alleged groper of women who tells untruths as easily as he breathes - but more than 67 million Americans did.

To anybody who knows Florida, there is little mystery to Mr Trump's appeal. He appears as a brash, self-made man (though the truth is that he inherited his wealth) - just the sort of brash, self-made man whom brash, aspirational citizens of Florida might emulate.

Florida thrives on vulgarity - just go to Miami and view the poseurs and hustlers. The city is the boob-job capital of America, with nearly four plastic surgeons for every 100,000 people.

This is Mr Trump's territory. His natural home is his club and golf course at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach.

Where well-heeled leftish elites see a crass vulgarity, others see a success they would love. Snobbery can colour judgment.

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We have also learnt again - though we should never not have known it - that the Latin vote is not a single entity.

There is a vast difference between the descendants of poor migrants from Mexico and those born to Cuban exiles. Few young Cuban-Americans in Florida have ever been to Cuba, but their flame against the left, including Joe Biden, burns fiercely in what they still imagine to be exile.

The fact that Hispanic people do not vote as a bloc ought to be reassuring.

There is something mildly racist about assuming that non-white people don't vote according to their class. When immigrants rise to riches, they behave like rich people of any colour, and that, to me at least, is reassuring, even if they don't vote the way I would.

We have learnt again from this election - though we should never have forgotten it - that "it's the economy stupid", as Bill Clinton's strategist, James Carville, famously put it.

One exit poll asked: "Which one of these five issues mattered most in deciding how you voted for president?"

The economy was way ahead (35 per cent) compared with racial equality (20 per cent), the coronavirus pandemic (17 per cent), crime and safety (11 per cent) and healthcare policy (11 per cent).

Mr Trump's defiance of the scientific advice on the pandemic played well to those who imagined he was standing up for the economy.

But then again, that's only what a poll showed - and what do the pollsters know?

Poor America. Poor world.