As a non-American watching this election has been both incredibly hilarious and downright sad. 

I find it hilarious, because the US is always held as a gold standard when it comes to democracy and is widely-considered as the "best". And yet, more than ever, this year's election has shown how restrictive and skewed your two-party system is. You're given this binary choice between two equally unsuitable candidates and then pat yourselves on the backs saying "Yep son, feels good to be living in America, greatest country on the planet!" To hear people talk about it, nobody really likes Trump or Clinton and yet, most of you are going to be voting for one of them come the 8th of November. Voting for anyone else is widely considered a waste, meaning that it will be considered a waste during 2020 as well, because by getting almost no votes these people will continue being outsiders. If that's not a vicious circle, I don't know what is. 

Secondly, the rhetoric both candidates have displayed is catering to the lowest common denominator, like scraped-from-the-bottom-of-the-barrel low. Seriously, it reminds me of our two-bit politicians we have here on the Balkans. It's been a non-stop shit slinging fest of leaks, scandals and backroom deals that you normally associate with banana republics and third world countries. (I should know, because I live in one) Gotta say though, my personal favourite is how Russia is used as a fear mongering tool. Hillary accuses the Russians of everything, while Trump is using the threat of nuclear war (which is complete and utter bullshit, but the majority of Americans know jack shit about Russian politics so it's understandable) to get some more votes. First it was the commies and the USSR, then Osama and terrorism, then China and Iran, now it's back to Russia again? Oh yeah, I forgot North Korea which gets thrown around when there's nothing more serious on the horizon. Don't you guys have something else to unite you apart from some boogeyman?

On a more serious note, I do find it all incredibly sad, because the strongest and most developed nation on Earth couldn't find one suitable person out of 300+ million people to represent it? I know this has been said millions of times on the internet already, but seriously - what the fuck, US? You'd think that by having such a high standard of living people would develop not only financially but sociologically as well, but it seems like the exact opposite is happening. Then again, same thing happened to Rome, so I don't know why I'm surprised.