AMERICA'S EXISTENTIAL CHOICE.

The US presidential elections are about more than the sum of the contenders.  In this cycle of discontent, full of "sound and fury", serious issues are being overtaken by leaks, innuendos and trivia.  In reality, what is at stake is the future of America in the short-term. Seldom has there been such a frankly alarming moment of choice.

The United States are beleaguered both at home and in the world.  While multiple choices abroad are still in reach, the polarization inside will be much harder to reverse when not remedied. The two candidates are flawed. One is unfit, the other can appear ambiguous. One is structurally flawed in all aspects, the other carries the tension between a public persona and a private "no trespassing" zone of comfort.

There have always been debates between one or the other school of thought: federal power versus the states, and constitutional freedom of choice versus measures rooted in a set of moral and religious values and in political calculus.  The voters now must make up their minds: either they risk derailing the core democratic values, or they reinvest in a complex  more secular paradigm. Both choices are equally perilous insofar as one or the other will have to confront a backlash, with unforeseeable consequences. The losers on either side will certainly feel too frustrated to cooperate and too hurt to let their defeat play out in a gallant way.

The pathological real estate autocrat is irreversibly tainted by his embrace of unsavory characters and by murky business deals, while the reformer appears often not to be able to shelve once and for ever ambiguities of her own making.  The choice has become an existential one. Issues take a back seat while the fabric of the American society receives, rightly so, full attention.  
It would furthermore be ironic if Trump, elected, would be more welcome in Moscow than in Western European countries where he is a pariah. The bluff, the diplomatic ignorance, the nuclear largesse, the Tweet life-span of his attention range might fit the profile of a casino mogul but they make him unqualified for the function he foolishly aspires to. 

Another danger is that Trump is a willing hostage of the Breitbart "Alt Right" which wants to erase all that President Obama stands for. The ultra right has found in this Manchurian candidate the right tool to arrive at defined objectives he does not even care to understand, as long as his ego is taken care of.

At the end only Secretary Clinton fits the profile required for becoming the next Commander in chief / President, but if she wins she better prepare for an ugly aftermath. Her opponents will  stop at nothing, even on the back of America's ethos, reputation, rule of law and civil liberties.