Donald Trump vs Hillary Clinton: The election no one wants

It is to choose between the third or fifth circle in Dante’s inferno. You will pick the less painful of two poisons.

Mishaal Shirazi March 28, 2016
In this most bizarre of presidential election cycles, every day seems to bring another jaw-dropping development. This year’s presidential race could come down to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Both are despicable and horrifying choices to lead United States. To vote between them is to play the worst game of “eenie, meenie, minie, moe” imaginable.

It is to choose between the third or fifth circle in Dante’s inferno, between Applebee’s and Chili’s, between socialism and communism—choose your own painful analogy, but you get the point. You will pick the less painful of two poisons.

Do you pick the war monger who has lied about some of the most important issues the US has faced? From the events surrounding Benghazi, to her vote in favour of the Iraq war, the reset with Russia and most importantly and perhaps damning — why and how she was illegally using a personal email server to communicate classified information, including top secret intelligence.

But, she still looks sane in front of (*drum rolling*) the ridiculous xenophobe buffoon: Trump – whose foreign policy limits to building walls to stop immigrants.

Trump is a massive, long-standing cultural celebrity, which commands the attention of large numbers of Americans who usually ignore politics (which happens to be the majority of the population), which in turn generates enormous, highly charged crowds pulsating with grievance and rage. That means that the immediate danger isn’t Trump’s actual policy but the bigotry and violence that it both legitimises and encourages. He’s powerfully poisoning public discourse about multiple marginalised minority groups: in particular, inciting and inflaming what was already volatile anti-Muslim animosity in the US.

The group Trump really appeals to and Clinton doesn’t is the white working class voters. They’re a group that Ms Clinton has struggled with this year and are also where Trump draws the most support. Mr Trump has declared his willingness to start trade wars to protect American interests. Those messages are resonating because white working class voters are angry. They’re seeing their jobs vanishing, the culture around them changing and the country under threat from terrorism.

Taken together, America is hurtling towards an election that no one wants. The Democratic Party will nominate a candidate most Democrats dislike because their game is rigged. The Republican Party will nominate a candidate most Republicans dislike because their game is not. It’s a wonderful advertisement for liberal democracy.

There may still be time to prevent this train wreck, but we are hurtling at full speed into some dangerous curves.

At the end I hope none of us face this choice, but failing to cast a vote shrugs off civic responsibilities men and women have died to protect so one may just have to toss a coin or go with the party and the policies their party represent rather than the person representing them. Seems like many Democrats may vote for Clinton, just to deter Trump from winning (and some republicans may do the same.)
WRITTEN BY:
Mishaal Shirazi The author is a Portfolio Management analyst in New York.
The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune.

COMMENTS (10)

Bibloo | 7 years ago | Reply Get a life.
Jesse James | 7 years ago | Reply So when shes back in the white house, where will she put a server so it can't be monitored?
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