Boy, have we come a long way from the founding of the United States. When once political philosophers and intellectuals were heralded as great minds worthy to lead the people, we are once again, in modern times, finding ourselves in dire want and need of actual leaders. Perhaps the saddest, most disturbing element of 2016’s election is the nomination of millionaire reality television star, Donald Trump.

It’s pretty easy to tear apart his qualifications. He has virtually no experience in the political field at all. He often appears to know very little about foreign affairs, nor does he understand international treaties. In one breath, he suggests that Russia won’t invade Ukraine further if he were president of the United States. In another breath, he’s threatening to pull the USA from NATO entirely, exposing many of those Baltic nations to exactly that very threat. He has proven careless with his words time and time again, and when criticized, he lashes out and doubles down instead of clarifying. His constant double speak makes it impossible to know where he stands on anything in earnest. One moment, he’s getting applause from audiences by appearing accepting of a crying baby. A few moments later, he gets laughs by scolding the mother and saying that he was just “being sarcastic.”  He says he was being sarcastic by suggesting President Obama and Hillary Clinton co-founded ISIS, then adds that little comment of, “It wasn’t that sarcstic, if I’m honest with you.” Supporters lash out at the media for never “getting Trump’s comments right,” but then Trump turns around and says different things at different times. The fact that almost everything he says will be inherently argued as “tongue-in-cheek” at any moment of criticism is telling to how seriously Mr. Trump takes his role as a political leader – not just in America, but in the world as well.

One of the biggest reasons people seem to support Mr. Trump is that he isn’t “politically correct.” For many – particularly on the right – political correctness is detrimental to our country and its very survival. The idea is that when we are so concerned about offending people, the “walking on eggshells” gets in the way of productive, meaningful discussion about policy that could improve or fix things. That is the perceived threat of PC culture.

In some sense, it seems logical that people who feel that way would jump onto the Donald Trump candidacy. Here is a guy, after all, who does not seem to care if he offends anybody. He’s “not politically correct!” Ignoring the fact that not being politically correct is not the same thing as just being a giant, xenophobic asshole, and that having the ability to show some tact and human decency to respect people other than oneself is key to diplomacy, the idea of PC culture as a “threat” is such an inherently vague and poorly defined thing. Everyone has a different idea of what “politically correct” actually means, and everyone has a different idea of how productive or harmful or inconsequential it is.

That’s kind of the thing: the argument is that the “PC police” are making it impossible to have a productive discourse in this country. If that is indeed the critique and issue surrounding politically correct culture, then Mr. Trump is absolutely not the solution. At best, he would be the opposite side of the exact same coin. Surely, even the most ardent opponents to “political correctness” can see that simply going out of one’s way to insult and offend everyone is equally corrosive and fundamentally detrimental to promoting public discourse. When has anyone – including Mr. Trump -ever gotten particularly talkative about the merits or issues surrounding his policy? Instead, we are all – including Trump supporters – spending most of our energy trying to interpret what the GOP candidate must have meant, or to what level of “sarcastic” he was probably being.

 

Mr. Trump is one of those rare candidates that seems to have sold a feeling so well to a particular base that he is immune to criticism. Even the likes of Bernie Sanders had to often face scrutiny about how he planned to enact policy proposals, or how he would pay for them. Some of the key policy points from the Trump platform are worth discussing, but it seems that Mr. Trump is above having to answer any questions about it, or put any additional thought into them.

Take, for instance, immigration policy. This is one of the big talking points of political supporters of Mr. Trump. It ultimately isn’t that hard to see where the idea of banning Muslim immigrants, or immigrants from Islamic countries comes from. Even if you disagree, it’s not that difficult to see why the proposal was made. For many, stopping the influx of immigrants from a nation known for producing terrorists just makes sense to protect us against Islamist terrorism. While I personally disagree with the policy and find it ethically repulsive, I get why many others think differently. It is a policy worth discussing.

The problem, of course, is that Mr. Trump has done a much worse job actually stating what his policy proposal actually is or entails than some of his supporters. For example, the initial policy was going to be a ban on all Muslim immigrants. That then morphed into only a ban on Muslim immigrants from Islamic nations (while allowing Christians of that same nation). That then morphed into a proposal to ban all immigrants from any nation that has been “compromised,” with very little explanation as to how “compromised nation” would be defined. While banning immigrants based on religious preference is not actually unconstitutional, it doesn’t exactly help the Trump campaign that at one point his proposal included refusing Muslim Americans back into the country if they traveled abroad – a policy that would very much be one of the more blatantly unconstitutional proposals put forth by a presidential candidate.

Apart from not knowing what exactly the plan for immigration reform might be, there are serious pragmatic concerns. Contrary to what many in the Republican party and news media would have us believe, the vetting process for immigrants seeking asylum is pretty strict and tough. At one point, Mr. Trump did suggest that better vetting was necessary, but failed to elaborate on what makes the current system inadequate, or what he thinks could make it more efficient or improved. Indeed, he has claimed he will implement “extreme, extreme vetting,” again with little in the ways of details. Experts involved in immigration processing have even come forward to call attention to how much more difficult, time consuming, and pricey some of his proposals would actually be. Yet Mr. Trump and his supporters have largely avoided answering any of those questions. Instead, they have gone on to simply discuss how threatening Muslims are in America.

 

That’s what he does: he makes vague policy proposals with a completely inadequate explanation, skirts questions about them by stating things in outwardly offensive or threatening language, stirs up a media storm, and then we are once again talking about how horrible Donald Trump is rather than how problematic and unreasonable his policy is. Trump supporters are similarly left having to justify every insult or volatile comment on his behalf. The public discourse is all about Mr. Trump, not policy. It is functionally identical to if both candidates were overly concerned about being “politically correct.”

And yes, Mr. Trump has done much to drum up anti-Muslim sentiment. Some supporters argue that his immigration policy is not “anti-Muslim.” It’s just “common sense.” That Mr. Trump doesn’t actually have a problem with Muslims, nor is he trying to convince Americans that they should either. He just wants to keep Americans safe. Obviously, these comments focus too much on his vaguely defined immigration policy, and not enough on his other comments.

Mr. Trump lied to the American public about Muslim Americans cheering for 9/11 in the streets of New Jersey, a statement that wasn’t factual when it was made all those years ago and is equally incorrect today. He has intentionally presented the vetting process as easy and quick. He has implied that American Muslims are not doing enough to help us fight terrorism, even suggesting that they know who is or could be planning an attack without calling it in (ignoring, of course that American Muslims are among the most likely groups of people to give tips to the FBI or CIA). He has suggested that the way to fight Islamist terror is to bomb their families (a tactic, by the way, that many would argue President Obama has been inadvertently doing with disastrous results). He has promoted expanding secret domestic surveillance programs on American Muslim communities, again with little explanation as to how such programs would work and whether they would even be constitutional. And in what is somehow the lowest offense, he made ignorant comments following the DNC regarding Ghazala Khan, suggesting that she might not have even been allowed to say anything (since, ya know, she’s Muslim and all Muslims, especially in America, clearly hate or oppress women).

It’s also worth noting the huge double standard Mr. Trump sets for himself. Following Khizir Khan’s rhetorical question to him regarding whether or not he has read the US constitution, he fired back by saying that Mr. Khan has “no right” to suggest to people that he hasn’t. It’s a retort that is almost hilarious given that Mr. Trump feels he has the right to suggest that Mrs. Khan was not allowed to say anything, or that President Obama and Hillary Clinton co-founded ISIS, or that an American judge of Mexican heritage is unfit to preside over his case, or that most Mexicans are rapists or drug dealers or thieves, or that President Obama is a scary Muslim. Apparently, Mr. Trump is only capable of dishing it; not taking it. That’s fine for a reality television star, but is a tad problematic for the leader of the free world – and doubly so if the big concern is “PC culture” ruining the public discussion.

 

The border wall to Mexico is another issue that is easy to understand its origin. Again, many of us disagree with the idea of the wall as a particularly efficient or practical proposal; it does make some logical sense why some support it. People are worried about illegal immigration. A physical barrier on the border could potentially physically reduce it. It’s an easy idea to disagree with (for starters, it fails to address the root of the issue entirely), but it’s also an easy idea to get behind if you are overly concerned about illegal immigration.

The strange thing about the proposal is that, unlike Mr. Sanders’s or Mrs. Clinton’s free college plans, Mr. Trump has never had to really try to explain how he would pay for it. This, of course, is largely due to the fact that he has said that we won’t pay for it at all; Mexico will. There has similarly been very little explanation for how Mr. Trump supposes he could get a foreign nation to pay for our domestic construction project. Similarly, he has had to address no concerns about long term questions surrounding the wall.

A border wall will have more costs than just construction. Even if he does manage to miraculously get Mexico to pay for it to be built, who will cover the cost of maintenance and upkeep? Where exactly is the wall going to go? Are there potential environmental problems that would emerge from its placement? Who owns the land that the wall would be built on? What if private citizens living on the border refuse to allow the wall to extend onto their property? Is Mr. Trump prepared to use eminent domain to build this wall? Will conservatives, who are always concerned the government is going to take their guns away, sit quietly as they watch their candidate literally take their land away? How might the wall subsequently impact those property values? If Mexico is covering the cost of the initial build, will Mr. Trump do anything or use any American resources to compensate American citizens impacted? How might the wall impact trade with Mexico on a national level? How might it impact those border towns on a local level? Will it require a staff? If so, what would the size of the force be, and how much might that run? What happens if local communities are adversely affected, and after ten years we see no real drop in illegal immigration? Is there even a plan proposed to at least study any of these things, or what kind of impact it might actually have on illegal immigration?

These are not “small questions.” These are not “irrelevant” concerns. Mr. Trump has avoided dealing with any of these, simply by saying, “Trust me, I’ll make Mexico pay for it,” which should not be a satisfactory reply for anyone, including Trump supporters! Yet there’s another reason why the GOP nominee has been able to avoid having to actually clarify or explain any of his positions: he uses unclear language, often with hostile rhetoric and tone, to rile everyone up and distract from the policy.

Donald Trump clearly knows nothing about politics. He knows little about foreign affairs and international treaties. It’s hard to imagine that he even knows much about economics given how inconsistent he’s been as a businessman. But it’s dangerous to think of him as total idiot. The one thing Mr. Trump knows very well is how to play the media to his advantage. He has long been a subscriber to the idea that all press is good press, and controversy breeds greater attention. This has helped him in his career as a reality television superstar, and it has definitely helped him in this election. Media coverage has been overwhelmingly in favor of Trump stories than any other candidate.

There are some who have jokingly put forth a theory that Donald Trump is a DNC/Clinton plant, put forth to ensure Hillary Clinton wins the office. If this were any other election, I might be inclined to agree. Really, the reason I don’t buy it is that the fallback candidates from the GOP were Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, John Kasich, Ben Carson, and at one point, Chris Christie. The entire field was a joke from the start, and for all the issues surrounding Clinton and her campaign, it’s hard to imagine that she had no chance against any of those other Republican candidates.

But my theory is this: Mr. Trump knows exactly what he’s doing. He intentionally uses vague or cryptic and controversially offensive language that he knows full well the media is going to run with. He knows that following any rally or press conference or interview, it is in his best interest to get people to talk about what he means, rather than what his policy is. Given his complete and proven ineptitude in the political stratosphere, he knows that he has to distract from it. I think he even knows that the opposite of “political correctness” is not “blatant, unhidden racism, sexism, and xenophobia,” but he knows that those who engage in the latter will rush to defend him. When given the opportunity to explain what he means, Mr. Trump rarely does. Instead, he throws a temper tantrum about how the media keeps twisting his words. (Another rallying cry for those fringe right-wingers who want an America where they won’t be judged or chastised for holding openly racist opinions and saying openly offensive things about minority groups of Americans.)

Mr. Trump is not an idiot when it comes to the media. He has long recognized that the best way to get a lot of attention is to be controversial. That is exactly what he has done in this campaign. Which is why if someone genuinely believes political correctness is getting “in the way” of public discourse, they should be able to recognize that Mr. Trump is definitively not doing anything differently. He has lied about all sorts of things to make himself seem bigger. He double speaks all the time. For a guy who complains that the media always twists his words, he never actually takes the opportunities they keep giving him to clarify. More importantly, he never even tries to speak directly the first time. He has never shown any inclination to put any thought into what he is saying or how he is saying it.

Some argue these are positive attributes, that it shows he’s just like any other American. He refuses to change for anyone, and he flies off the cuff. There are so many ways that I want to dissect this concept though.

First, Donald Trump is not just like any other American. He was born into a family of wealth and has been granted every opportunity for repeated failures as a direct result. Most of us would not be able to survive with even one of the business failures that Mr. Trump has endured, never mind the half dozen times he’s had to file a venture for bankruptcy. Additionally, Mr. Trump was able to get going because of a $1 million loan from his father. Most Americans would never be able to obtain a loan for half that amount for anything other than a house, and certainly not from anywhere but a bank (where we would be required to pay it back lest we suffer harsh consequences to our credit among other legal ramifications). He is also a celebrity figure who has appeared in movies and on television. When he tried to show how relatable he was, he posted a photo-op of himself eating KFC…with a knife and fork…on his private jet. (A photo that has not been detrimental to his campaign at all, surely confounding all those who worked on Michael Dukakis’s campaign, or really any presidential candidate from the past couple of decades who were regularly tested on what the price of milk was in order to prove they’re not so far above the American people.)

Secondly, the President of the United States of America is not a job that we should hold the requirements equal to that of a reality television star. Why do we want a leader who refuses to recognize his venue or circumstance and adjust his behavior accordingly? The idea that you will just always be who you are is great, but who among us actually has that luxury? Are you not expected to behave in a different fashion at work than you are at the bar with your friends after? Would you really not expect someone to behave a particular way at a funeral than they would at a wedding? Who among us does not try to present themselves as cleaner, friendly, smarter, and better in job interviews? Do you really want someone who will act the same way around foreign dignitaries as they would around a crowd of their own fan base for a public rally? The idea that Mr. Trump is great because he never changes his attitude or behavior highlights the idea that a number of his supporters simply don’t want to grow up or act mature.

Thirdly, we are not electing just your average American. We are electing a President who is going to be a national and global leader. We need to be putting forth more candidates who will actually be calm and collected, who won’t simply lash out at any criticism or perceived slight. We need someone who will be measured and considerate before opening his mouth.  It was said of our greatest national hero, George Washington, that he was “blessed with the gift of silence.” He was not without opinion. He just knew when it was better to remain quiet, recognizing that always responding emotionally made for bad leadership. Today, we do not, in fact, need someone who will fly off the cuff and simply react in the moment. That works for television. It might even work for some other jobs or scenarios. That is absolutely not what we need nor should want for the Presidency.

 

The scariest thing about Mr. Trump, in my opinion, is that he is the physical embodiment of an internet troll. He is intentionally divisive and vague, and the most dangerous thing about him isn’t even his violent rhetoric. It’s his compulsion to reject information, knowledge, and facts. I don’t know when being intellectual stopped being important in America, but it should still be something we want from our political leaders. If you truly want issues to be improved upon or addressed in a meaningful or productive fashion, then we need someone who will not simply reject the facts. We need more leaders who will encourage and inspire us to become smarter, not dumber. We need to return to the days when we expected our political leaders to be intellectuals, people capable of critical thought and original ideas, who will at least try to listen to facts and information. No one is ever going to be smart enough as an individual to be president, but that’s why they have a cabinet and advisers. In this way, Mr. Trump has similarly failed as well, surrounding himself with some of the worst advisers imaginable.

Putting forth Donald Trump as a presidential candidate, and even a vote for him, is openly campaigning against the idea of an intelligent, thoughtful, productive America. The rejection of facts and information is terrifying. The policy proposals that are often constitutionally questionable are horrifying. The lack of any cohesion or clarity is anxiety-inducing. His lack of accountability is chilling. The general behavior is highly unbecoming and uninspiring. The rhetoric is dangerous and threatening. The manipulation and compulsive lying are telling. I’m not generally inclined to believe anyone when they say So-And-So is the worst candidate in American history. I generally try to stay away from such hyperbole.

But in a year with a historically poor, disliked, and uninspiring pool of candidates across the board on both sides, Donald Trump is without question the worst candidate America has ever put forth. Part of me wonders if the greater conspiracy is that this was the anti-Union’s long game the whole time. Should Mr. Trump win the election, I can see a number of calls for secession, or people begging to disband or flee.

Of course, the scariest thing is that it isn’t just about Mr. Trump. One of my greatest anxieties at this point is where do we go from here, either way? Donald Trump has largely succeeded by playing up the idea of a divided nation. Indeed, America always has been more on the divided side than the united. But this is starting to feel different. Mr. Trump didn’t start this. He isn’t entirely to blame for his supporters latching onto him for the most unreasonable of justifications. But he may have very well sped up the death of America by a solid 30 years.