I don’t know which is more disheartening – the fact that the two leaders in the Presidential race are a celebrity show bully or a self-proclaimed Socialist or that the woman who could be the first female president is so careless with classified documents. Really?  No wonder my non-American friends constantly ask me to explain our choices.

Obviously, the reason that Trump and Sanders are getting the support they are getting is due to a general disgust at the lack of accomplishment of the U.S. government. What many people might forget is that the founding fathers intentionally set up our system to be slow.  I grant you we’ve taken it to new heights but I don’t think the answer is to go to the most non-professional, most unrealistic choices to be the 45th President of the U.S. Neither, however, can I support someone who committed a similar breach of security as did General Petraeus who was convicted of a misdemeanor that I felt was a “gift” by the Justice Department. As I wrote then, anyone his junior would have had a much greater punishment.  

There is no doubt that Hillary is well-qualified to be President – whether one agrees with her positions or not. But the hubris that allows Trump to be so rude and self-promoting is the same quality that made Hillary so brazen about breaking the security rules of the Obama White House.  She felt she didn’t have to follow any rules at all. That doesn’t bode well for a U.S. President in this day and age.

I am hoping as we get a little closer to the actual election, more American voices will be raised in trying to find a realistic, law-abiding, leader who can lessen the polarization that has developed in this country over the past thirty years. And wouldn’t it be nice if the vitriol that spews from various candidates was dissipated and instead we had some interesting debates about the future of the country?

And, of course, Trump and Sanders getting the praise of Jesse Ventura is not the seal of approval most Americans will appreciate. (Nor do we want a Trump/Ventura ticket as Ventura just proposed.)

I am looking forward to sanity perhaps returning this Fall or Winter!