12 US elections 2016: between a rock and a hard place

This week’s The Economist has a wonderful cover showing Donald Trump on a rather annoyed-looking elephant, with the words “Trump's triumph, America's tragedy”. Truer words have rarely been spoken. Mr Trump has such a bizarre array of contradicting views and such an absolute lack of knowledge across so many fields (and nearly all of science) that his becoming the GOP's presidential nominee amazes me to no end.

While Mrs Clinton has had her share of troubles, if I had to, I would pick her for the simple reason that she has policies that do not seem to belong in a comic book. In fact, erstwhile Rome would be a more apt home for Mr Trump's foreign policy, as The Economist points out, stating that it is “a Roman vision of foreign policy, in which the rest of the world's role is to send tribute to the capital and be grateful for the garrisons”.

And yet, picking between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, to a foreigner such as myself — not that it matters — quickly (and unfortunately) becomes a question of choosing between not good enough and unarguably bad. We would love to have more than ”not good enough“, but certainly nothing close to ”unarguably bad“. Usually, I'm happy when good things happen in the US because it serves as a route map to many developing countries, and some even choose to mimic it, or, at least, it sparks similar debates around the world — which is a good thing. But with this election all I can say is, brace yourselves.