Olivia Wiesler | Staff Writer

With only a couple days left to go before the election, you would think that everybody knows who they want to vote for and has an idea of who might win.  However, this election, as you have probably heard a multitude of times, is not like any other election seen before.  Because there is so much controversy for both candidates, there are still many people who don’t know who is the better choice.  According to the post on Quora.com by Brad Scheller, Harvard graduate and Co-founder of Dentistry Specialists Integrated, as of May 15^th, 42% of the population did not associate themselves with either party because they were disgusted by both candidates. This is a record-breaking number that gives only a small insight to the real craziness of the 2016 election.  Why is this election so insane?  Because neither candidate is qualified for the presidency, and yet Americans have to make a choice, not for who is suited for the title of President of the United States of America, but who we dislike the least.  And quite frankly, there is not much to choose from.

Let’s take a look at the candidates.  First, there is Donald Trump.  When one only says the name, hateful emotions are evoked in many people.  Trump is known for his racists and sexist comments, lashing out on social media, and promising to “Make America Great Again” but without saying how.  Many people find him revolting, because he speaks without a filter.  He says what is on his mind and doesn’t think twice about how the public might react to it.  He has said things like, “I would bomb the s*** out of them.  I love war in a certain way,” and “…when you’re a star, they let you do it.  You can do anything.  Grab ‘em by the p****.”  He also makes hateful comments whenever he gets defensive, and this happens a lot.  Any time someone attacks him, his ideas, or his campaign, he fires right back at them, whether at a rally or on social media.  These incidents have been the height of traditional media and news throughout this whole campaign process.  To make matters worse, he doesn’t have any experience in government.  Trump supporters believe that he would be good in office because he knows how to run a business; thus, he would be able to help America out of debt.  But in reality, Trump has gone bankrupt four times!  Trump also needs to know the political side of things in order to take care of the economy, and he has little experience in that.  In fact, because of his derogatory comments and his negative appearances in the media, he has made many enemies not just in the states but in Washington itself.  This would make it difficult for him to get legislation passed even if he did make it to the presidency.  He needs to have an idea of how politics work in order to be successful in Washington.

While Trump seems to be unfit for president, the other choice, Hillary Clinton, is not any better.  Clinton is notorious for her lies and deceit, has been involved in many controversial criminal investigations, and has gone back and forth between political stances as much as a pendulum on a clock.  The first thing most people think of when they hear the name Hillary Clinton is emails.  In fact, when you type in Clinton into Google, the first suggested terms that come up are “Clinton emails.”  Clinton has been under multiple investigations regarding this email controversy.  According to BBC News, Clinton used her personal email while in the office of Secretary of State, which meant the government did not record the email unless she forwarded the message to someone with a government email. This brings up questions about her moral ethic.  Clinton has also lied to cover her husband’s sexual scandals and rape accusations.  SwingState.com states that Hillary claimed that her husband’s affair with intern Monica Lewinksy was a “right-wing conspiracy,” but even Bill Clinton himself had admitted to the affair.  Hillary Clinton’s lies do not stop here.  When it comes to her beliefs and political stances, she has manipulated the people in where she stands. Quoted in The American Spectator article, “10 Reasons Why I Will Never Vote for Hillary Clinton,” Hillary says at one point in her campaign, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business,” and then later says to a coal miner who calls her out on it, “…it was a misstatement, because what I was saying is that the way things are going now, we will continue to lose jobs.” That is a manipulation of words if I have ever seen one.  And she has been doing this with many other topics including, but not limited to, gay marriage, the Keystone Pipeline, and gun control.  Hillary Clinton is just as unfit for the presidency as Donald Trump.

However, while this year’s election is pretty insane as it is because of our two options for the next leader of our country, it gets even worse when one looks at the campaign strategies of the two candidates.  Granted, most elections do focus some on bringing out the bad and the ugly in their opponent, but Trump and Clinton?  That seems to be all they ever talk about!  Trump spends a lot of his campaign talking about Clinton’s emails, her husband’s scandals, Democrat conspiracies of the media and polls, and anything else he can think of to tarnish the already not-so-hot image of Hillary Clinton.  To defend herself, Clinton attacks Trump and his supporters, talking about their “negative, dark, divisive, dangerous vision and behavior” in a rally on November 1^st.  Go to Trump’s media page on his website and just about every other article is about Hillary and her “crookedness.”  Go to Hillary’s homepage on her website and three of the four top articles are about Trump, and further down the page in big letters it states “Join the official campaign—and help stop Donald Trump!”  With the election days away many news and media people have talked about the candidates’ need for closing messages.  Trump’s closing argument is centered around the idea that Hillary is unfit for the presidency, while Hillary’s closing message is centered around the idea that Trump is unfit for the presidency.  Both candidates are worried more about what America would look like if their opponent was president than if they were president.  Never before have I seen an election campaign that is so focused on attacking not just the opponent’s ideas, but his or her character as a human being as well, and we see it in both candidates’ campaigns.

Between the choices for the presidency and the strategies for their campaigns, the 2016 election will definitely go down in the history books.  It won’t be famous for the possible first woman president or the fact that minority groups will play a large role in the voting.  It will be remembered for its insanity.

Graphic by Megan Snyder