One of These Idiots Is Going to Be President

There is much sturm und drang over “who won” the presidential debate last night.

I’m not sure either of the candidates won, really. Donald Trump didn’t throw a chair, and Hillary Clinton managed to get through it without passing out or something.

For me the bar was set that low. They both cleared it. Well done, I guess.

Americans really have poor choices for President this year.

Historically poor. This election cycle is going to become a political cliche future generations of Americans use to describe a situation when you’re forced to choose between bad and worse but aren’t sure which is which. Like how every political controversy gets the “-gate” suffix, invoking the Nixon-era Watergate scandal.

Mark my words. In a couple of years we’ll all be saying stuff like, “It’s a real Trump or Clinton situation.”

[mks_pullquote align=”right” width=”300″ size=”24″ bg_color=”#ffffff” txt_color=”#000000″]”She deserved it and nobody feels sorry for her,” he told the nation. How presidential, a candidate in the national spotlight punching down at a d-list celebrity.[/mks_pullquote]

Clinton is a weasel. She is the villain from some overwrought political drama made real. She is a corrupt liar whose only redeeming quality is that sometimes she can be bought off to do the right thing. And yet somehow, despite all that, she is still about as interesting as a bowl of oatmeal.

Trump, meanwhile, is a caricature of himself. He has a reputation as a loud mouthed buffoon and yet still somehow, in person, manages to come off as an exaggerated iteration of his own personality. A lout with all the intellectual complexity of your average reality television star hoping to get elected on the merits of his braggadocio. Where Clinton is boring, Trump is as exhilarating like watching some gruesome sports injury. You are horrified. You know you should stop gawking. And yet, you cant look away.

The worst moment of the debate? When Clinton brought up the time Trump called Rosie O’Donnell a fat pig.

“She deserved it and nobody feels sorry for her,” he told the nation. How presidential, a candidate in the national spotlight punching down at a d-list celebrity.

I was glad my daughter was in bed for that moment.

What’s depressing is that a vast swath of Trump’s supporters like him because of that sort of thing. Really.

And yet, somehow, political professional Clinton with all her decades of experience finds herself in a dead heat with Bozo the Presidential Candidate.

I wish Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson had been on the stage last night. We have reached a grim point in American politics when we must yearn for the inclusion of third party candidates to bring a sense of decorum and seriousness to the debate stage.

Not that I’m thinking about voting for the Libertarian ticket, mostly because those candidates don’t seem very libertarian to me.

Here’s the full debate if you missed it.