IT was a moment of respite amongst the madness. Next to me on the rooftop a young American infantryman was lying spread-eagled face down, peering through the scope of his rifle at the still-smouldering wreckage caused by the suicide car bomber on the street below us.

“It’s so f***** up sir, I mean the way the Hajis blow themselves up like that, yeah?” asked the fresh-faced youngster from North Carolina, using the pejorative slang common to soldiers when talking about Iraqis.

His question caught me off guard, still quaking as I was from the shock of the bloody events that had occurred just minutes before.

“Perhaps he did it for ‘God and Country’,” I replied only half-jokingly, as much to cover up my own nervousness as anything else.

Cranking his head around, the young ­soldier’s gaze fell on me for what seemed ages before he answered without any hint of irony or self-consciousness.

“That, I get,” came the matter-of-fact reply, before returning his gaze along the length of the M4 carbine tucked against his shoulder.

There was something unimpeachably ­honest about the way he said it. A declaration so heartfelt it was unassailable. In some ways it was almost as if a child were speaking.

It was the US children’s author EB White who once observed: “To hold America in one’s thoughts is like holding a love letter in one’s hand – it has so special a meaning.”

This heart-on-the-sleeve passion, openness and candour are qualities I’ve always admired about Americans, even if what was being said often made me queasy.

Back in January 20, 2017, when Donald Trump raised his right hand and solemnly swore he would faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States you just knew this was a moment devoid of that ­ integrity and authenticity of feeling.

When Trump promised to the best of his ability to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, I wasn’t alone in thinking it was yet another of his many lies. Since then, of course, the world has looked on dumbfounded at the audacity of his deceit and dishonesty.

Early last Thursday evening, like millions across the world, I watched and listened as the Commander in Chief set a new low in that deceit.

As American democracy doggedly went about its business in the way we have come to expect and countless volunteers tallied the express political will of this great nation’s people, Trump did all he could to trample into the dust any last notion that this was the “Land of the Free”.

Here again was the man-child, blaming ­others for his own wrongdoing. Here again was the narcissist claiming credit for things he had done when in fact he hadn’t.

More sinister and calculating, here also was the fire-raiser, the political arsonist whose Tweets have become as incendiary as those Zippo lighters used by US GIs to torch the “hooches” of Vietnamese civilians caught in the crossfire during another dark chapter in American history.

If there was anything remotely clever in what Trump said on Thursday night, it was the sleight of hand with which he was slyly manoeuvring to burn down the house behind him on the way out of the door.

Some saw another Trump on display, a “pathetic”, beaten and defeated one. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper compared him to “an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun, realising his time is over”.

But the Trump I saw was not quite washed up yet. That feral cunning to pre-emptively delegitimise the election and flashes of defiance lingered. If anything it was his near incomprehension and disbelief at the idea of power slipping from his grasp that struck me most

In those conflicting gestures and words there were shades of the final days of other autocrats. Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, Manuel Noriega of Panama, Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu or Nicaragua’s Anastasio Somoza all came to mind.

Up until the election’s denouement these past days, Trump not only sat ­happily within such infamous ranks but also arguably aspired to be even more like such autocrats.

Time and again we watched him take a leaf out of the dictator’s playbook, ­purging from office those who disagreed with him, profiting off the presidency, indulging in the worst excesses of nepotism, dismantling those institutions he perceived as gunning for him and ­demonising ­minorities among other things.

It was the famous US Senator J William Fulbright, a southern Democrat and staunch multilateralist, who once made the case that there were two Americas.

Among the characteristics he identified was that “one is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good humoured, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power”.’

Sadly, for the past four years it has been the negatives among these ­characteristics that have so often been the hallmarks of the Trump presidency, not least the ­arrogance in the use of power.

For so long now the United States has long rejoiced in the title “leader of the free world,” but if the headlines in newspapers across the globe this past week are anything to go by then the world no longer sees America in such a light.

As I write Joe Biden is edging inexorably towards the presidency, but should he get to the White House he will have his work cut out. Waking up from this ­election America must face the inescapable fact that just shy of half the country, once again chose to endorse the reckless, polarising politics Trump offers.

Even with him removed from office his lingering toxic presence along with those Republican enablers of authoritarianism will continue to haunt a bitterly divided America.

Let’s not forget too that America’s ­afflictions are not all of Trump’s entire making but are deep rooted and have ­beset the country for decades.

Income inequality, racism, structural defects within a democratic system and deficits within the culture of democracy will prevail with or without Trump.

With Biden in the Oval Office there are those who will say “see, we told you so, America’s democracy came through in the end, its checks and balances held up”. While there’s some undeniable truth in this, it cannot disguise the shortcomings that have allowed a president like Trump to ride roughshod across the body politic.

So many Americans see each other with such disdain right now. So many things seem to divide rather than unite them. It is a country that seems to have lost a common purpose. Sure, election time ­especially one like this will always inflame passions. Back in 1835 when American democracy was in its ­infancy the French political scientist and ­diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville, wrote of the ­“feverish excitement” that gripped the country at election time.

He noted too that normality quickly resumed once the result was clear. A “calmer season returns ... the current of the State, which had nearly broken its banks, sinks to its usual level: but who can ­refrain from astonishment at the causes of the storm”.

The cause of that storm in the shape of Trump might be about to disappear, but this time around it might prove more ­difficult to navigate those turbulent channels that will bring America back to ­“normality”, and placid waters.

America, the Land of the Free, where the cry God and Country is so often the impassioned rallying call, could instead find itself wading in a swamp of uncertainty after the trauma of realising how easily a nation’s democratic freedoms can be taken away at the hands of an ­authoritarian president.

As you read this Joe Biden, of course, might well have prevailed and stand more than ready as president to clear away the wreckage left behind.

“Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall,” wrote one of America’s most cherished literary sons, novelist F Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby.

It might well be a few seasons yet before America feels the benefit of that rebirth, if and when it comes. In the meantime, we can but lament for what was once the Land of the Free, and hope that it finds itself worthy of that epithet once again soon.