There’s no avoiding it: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are going to be the Republican and Democratic nominees for president, foisting upon Americans the most dreadful choice for the nation’s highest office in modern history.
Trump and Clinton enter their general election faceoff as the two most unpopular major party nominees in decades of available polling. Clinton, specifically, is viewed unfavorably by about 56 percent of Americans, according to an average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics, compared with just 37 percent who view her favorably — for a net negative rating of 18 points.
In a typical election year, those numbers would be a political death sentence. But this isn’t a typical year, and Trump is staring at an even worse net negative rating of 24 points. These numbers imply that come November, millions of people will be casting votes for a candidate they actively despise.
Put aside any ideological considerations about where each candidate stands on immigration, taxes, healthcare, foreign policy or any other important issues. Looking at their character and careers, both candidates, in different ways, are unsuitable for the presidency.
Clinton and Trump are dishonest people who lie comfortably and repeatedly. They are vindictive against their perceived enemies. And they both eschew transparency. These are not individuals who should be allowed to control the IRS, the DOJ, and other government agencies that can be used to harass political opponents.
Clinton, as secretary of state, set up a private email server, risking the exposure of classified information to hide her emails from the public, and then deleted 30,000 emails, claiming they were personal. During the Democratic primaries, she refused to release the transcripts of speeches to Wall Street bankers for which she received six-figure dollar amounts. Trump, meanwhile, refuses to release his tax returns, making the irrelevant excuse that he’s being audited.
In the year she has been on the campaign trail, Clinton has barely held press conferences, and those she has have typically been limited to a few minutes, because she’s averse to scrutiny. Trump has made himself available for questions much more often. But he has over the course of the campaign denied credentials to outlets that cover him unfavorably, attacked critical reporters and even floated revisiting libel laws to make it easier to sue news organizations.
Throughout her public career, Clinton has been embroiled in scandal and engaged in corruption. From her profiting off of cattle futures to the current email controversy, she has conveyed a sense of entitlement, of the normal rules not applying to her. She has surrounded herself with loathsome figures such as Sidney Blumenthal and Sandy Berger. The Clintons’ family foundation was rife with conflicts of interest, serving as a conduit for donors and foreign countries to influence her as secretary of state.
Trump has no relevant experience to be president. His business successes have been wildly exaggerated, by himself and by reality television producers. Throughout his campaign, he has demonstrated not only a basic lack of understanding of policy, but a lack of interest in even taking policy seriously. From his still-accumulating history of racism and sexism to his crude attacks on his Republican primary opponents and their families, to his erratic temperament, to his urging on violence at his rallies, he has demonstrated over and over again his lack of fitness for the presidency. This is not somebody who Americans can feel comfortable about serving out the functions of the head of state, nor is he somebody who can be trusted with control of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
When President Obama stumbled into setting a red line on Syria that he was never prepared to enforce, it was a reminder of the importance of a president’s words. Throughout the campaign, we’ve seen Trump back himself into policy positions (such as his call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States) and refuse to back down from indefensible stances (as seen with his attacks on a judge being biased due to his Mexican heritage). It’s frightening, but all to easy, to imagine a President Trump creating international crises by his off the cuff remarks and even talking his way into war because his insecurity prevents him from showing weakness or admitting error.
Clinton, whose presidency would be an extension of the dynastic era in American history, has built up her resume in the past several decades, but her actual job performance has been abysmal. She rose into the national spotlight as a ground-breaking first lady who was given a major policy role in her husband’s administration. But her major initiative — her push for universal healthcare — was the biggest legislative and political disaster of the Clinton era. In short order, Clinton managed to alienate her own party, help Democrats lose control of Congress and force her husband to scale back the ambitions of his agenda for the rest of his presidency.
As senator, Clinton accomplished little before running a failed presidential campaign against Obama in 2008. As secretary of state, she presided over a chaotic Middle East policy, pushed the disastrous Libya intervention, and botched the “reset” with Russia. A defense of Clinton — that she was merely carrying out the policies of Obama — is to suggest that she was just a figurehead in the administration, thus undermining the idea that her time as America’s top diplomat demonstrates her decision-making prowess.
There is, at this time, plenty of chatter about third party options. But since the founding of the GOP in 1854, every president has been either a Republican or Democrat, and there’s no reason to believe this time will be different than the past 160 years. The lamentable reality is that come next January, the U.S. is nearly certain to be swearing in a new president that Americans now find deplorable.
