If, as looks likely at this moment, the presidential nominees of the two major parties of the United States in 2016 will be Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, we may be witnessing the lowest point in American electoral history. We have never had two candidates of such low stature running for president.
Indeed, they have almost as much in common as divides them. She is, as the late Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist William Safire — a man who almost never engaged personal invective — called her, a “congenital liar.” And she likely compromised American national interests while secretary of state.
Trump is a real estate tycoon who has lived a life dedicated to making money. A lifelong pursuit of money is not a crime, nor does it mean Trump is as crooked as Hillary Clinton. But he does share her lifelong preoccupation with self.
And he is mean-spirited. His assertion that John McCain, a man tortured for years while a prisoner of war during the Vietnam War, was not a war hero because he had been captured after being shot down; his mockery of a reporter’s physical disability; his cruel comments about Carly Fiorina’s looks; his lying about George W. Bush; his lowering of the discourse at every Republican debate in which he participated to the level of a high school food fight; and his constant use of personal insults are some of the examples of this mean-spirited — and immature — nature.
He is also prone to wild exaggeration and outright dishonesty. For example, his claims to have seen bodies flying from the World Trade Center — from his apartment more than 4 miles away — and thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrating the 9/11 attacks, and to have opposed the invasion of Iraq before the invasion, are either highly improbable or demonstrably false.
Hillary Clinton, while secretary of state, placed her own interest in money and power above the security of the United States — behavior that has few, if any, parallels in American history. As reported by The Associated Press, “During Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state, Bill Clinton earned $17 million in talks to banks, insurance companies, hedge funds, real estate businesses, and other financial firms.” There can be no plausible reason for the enormous fees paid to Bill Clinton except to influence American foreign policy. But we can never know precisely who and how because, while she was secretary of state, Hillary Clinton did what no other public servant has ever done: avoided creating a public record by using her own private email server, which she attempted to wipe clean after she left the government.
Moreover, like Trump, she has done nothing to merit being a presidential nominee, let alone a president. She got where she is in public life because she was married to a president. She accomplished little as a senator and was worse than unaccomplished as secretary of state; she used the position for her own ends.
Trump’s claims to be an “outsider” are a major source of his appeal, but he is no more an “outsider” than Clinton is. Both of their lives have revolved around being among, and relating almost only to, “insiders.” That is why Hillary Clinton attended Donald Trump’s wedding.
One difference between them is this: Donald Trump has lived a life dedicated to acquiring wealth and fame; Hillary Clinton has lived a life dedicated to acquiring wealth and power.
That these are likely to be the two major presidential candidates is a testament to the impact of two unprecedented intellect-numbing influences in American life over the past half-century — television and college. He is taken seriously because of his television fame. And she is taken seriously by college graduates — because so many have been indoctrinated rather than educated, and because so many women left college believing that women must support a woman for president. Or, as former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, owner of master’s and doctorate degrees, said at a campaign event for Hillary Clinton regarding the obligation of women to vote for Hillary Clinton rather than Sen. Bernie Sanders, “There is a special place in hell for women who don’t help women.”
That women who consider themselves feminists support Hillary Clinton — a woman who devised and orchestrated the campaign to smear the reputation of all the women who charged her husband with sexual harassment and even the woman who credibly charged him with rape — is testimony to the moral hypocrisy of the feminist movement.
Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government — except for all the others. More than a century before Churchill was born, the American Founders knew the inherent dangers of a pure democracy, which is why they founded America to be a republic, not a democracy.
That from among 330 million Americans this nation will likely choose two such unimpressive individuals to vie for the American presidency is cause for more than concern. It is cause for pessimism.
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