The most unpopular election in recent history

[Arbitrage1980]

Trump vs Hillary is unequivocally the worst presidential choice in American history. 

America has become so dumb, with an obsession with social media, celebrity gossip, and the 24/7 news cycle, that we are incapable of selecting truly great men/women to be our leaders.  It's a shame, but as the saying goes, we get the leaders that we deserve.  History will look back on the 2016 presidential election as the ultimate nadir when a political party that gave us Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, gave us a reality star con artist who is mentally unstable, while the party that gave us FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, gave us a woman who has reinvented herself a hundred times, is utterly unlikable, grossly mishandled classified information, and used her position to give out favors to donors. 

Shame on us all.

[Arbitrage1980]

Trump vs Hillary is unequivocally the worst presidential choice in American history. 

America has become so dumb, with an obsession with social media, celebrity gossip, and the 24/7 news cycle, that we are incapable of selecting truly great men/women to be our leaders.  It's a shame, but as the saying goes, we get the leaders that we deserve.  History will look back on the 2016 presidential election as the ultimate nadir when a political party that gave us Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, gave us a reality star con artist who is mentally unstable, while the party that gave us FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, gave us a woman who has reinvented herself a hundred times, is utterly unlikable, grossly mishandled classified information, and used her position to give out favors to donors. 

Shame on us all.

Well then, what the hell happened? Did we all become idiots in the span of 20 years or is it just cool to hate on social media?

Couple of things:

1. Nonstop news cycle incentivizes media to sensationalize stories and to dumb everything down.

2. Social media encourages crazy stories and conspiracy theories to easily permeate the electorate.

3. Both parties have become way too polarized ideologically.  Reasonable politicians are afraid of doing the right thing policy wise because of the fear of being challenged in a primary.

4. Because of the grueling nature of campaigns, talented people simply don't want to enter politics like they used to.  For the past 15 or so years, our nation's brightest have been flocking to finance, tech, and other areas of business rather than law, public service, politics. 

I mean compare this year's presidential debates to 1980 GOP debate between Reagan and HW Bush (it's on YouTube), Reagan vs Carter or 1992 Clinton vs HW Bush vs Perot.  YUGE drop in the caliber of candidates and depth of the debates.  And it's utterly laughable to compare Trump vs Hillary to matchups such as Wilkie vs FDR, Dewey vs FDR, Eisenhower vs Stevenson, Nixon vs JFK, HW Bush vs Clinton, even Obama vs Romney. 

[Arbitrage1980]

Trump vs Hillary is unequivocally the worst presidential choice in American history. 

America has become so dumb, with an obsession with social media, celebrity gossip, and the 24/7 news cycle, that we are incapable of selecting truly great men/women to be our leaders.  It's a shame, but as the saying goes, we get the leaders that we deserve.  History will look back on the 2016 presidential election as the ultimate nadir when a political party that gave us Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan, gave us a reality star con artist who is mentally unstable, while the party that gave us FDR, JFK, Bill Clinton, gave us a woman who has reinvented herself a hundred times, is utterly unlikable, grossly mishandled classified information, and used her position to give out favors to donors. 

Shame on us all.

Well then, what the hell happened? Did we all become idiots in the span of 20 years or is it just cool to hate on social media?

Couple of things:

1. Nonstop news cycle incentivizes media to sensationalize stories and to dumb everything down.

2. Social media encourages crazy stories and conspiracy theories to easily permeate the electorate.

3. Both parties have become way too polarized ideologically.  Reasonable politicians are afraid of doing the right thing policy wise because of the fear of being challenged in a primary.

4. Because of the grueling nature of campaigns, talented people simply don't want to enter politics like they used to.  For the past 15 or so years, our nation's brightest have been flocking to finance, tech, and other areas of business rather than law, public service, politics. 

I mean compare this year's presidential debates to 1980 GOP debate between Reagan and HW Bush (it's on YouTube), Reagan vs Carter or 1992 Clinton vs HW Bush vs Perot.  YUGE drop in the caliber of candidates and depth of the debates.  And it's utterly laughable to compare Trump vs Hillary to matchups such as Wilkie vs FDR, Dewey vs FDR, Eisenhower vs Stevenson, Nixon vs JFK, HW Bush vs Clinton, even Obama vs Romney. 

Heck compare this year GOP debates to the 2000 or even 2008 one and its laughable

2008 GOP debate was much better than 2012 and 2016. I don't really remember the Bush vs McCain 2000 debates.