As word came on Saturday that the election had been called for Joe Biden, hundreds of supporters of the defeated president began amassing at Pennsylvania’s state capitol building in Harrisburg to protest.

It was a split-screen simulcast of America’s intensified political division, as Donald Trump’s defeat was jubilantly celebrated 130 miles east in Philadelphia, and in cities around the country.

And just as Trump has refused to accept the outcome, so too have many of the around 75m people who voted for him, claiming instead that his loss was the result of ballot fraud – a baseless assertion promoted by the White House – and media manipulation.

“We need to make sure every legal vote is found