How does an enemy, or even just a friendly rival, compete with that level of power? They cannot take us on in a direct military conflict. They cannot dominate our economy. Efforts to block our cultural influence have backfired in nearly instance (note that even isolationist North Korea is obsessed with American basketball). The only way for them to succeed in our downfall (and they very much want that downfall to happen) is to get Americans to tear our great nation apart ourselves.
Christopher Nolan's 2010 blockbuster movie Inception examined the concept of introducing an idea into a person's subconscious mind while they are in a dream. In the movie, these dream delvers were able to carefully plant an idea within an unwitting person's mind, creating a larger outcome with the inception of the tiniest hint. This act of inception only worked if the idea already aligned with the target's desires or fears.
This science fiction premise is present in our reality. Our social media feeds have been carefully targeted by foreign agents to increase our societal divisions with the inception of misinformation and disinformation that already aligns with our fears. Thus, right-leaning citizens are fed the idea of our great nation falling into collapse due to insidious socialist radicals while left-leaning citizens have come to believe that we are on the brink of being overtaken by a totalitarian, fascist regime. There are bits of truth to both, but the only "winners" are those who are looking for the U.S. to lose.
Whatever the outcome of tomorrow's election, it is essential that we Americans continue to try and bridge the gaps that have widened in our nation. This means listening to those whom we have been often ignoring and working to clear the static of faulty information that is clogging our discourse. Perhaps this idea can be the seed for us to make a greater change, one towards unity and a better world.