This election is quite possibly the most unique ever. On one side, there’s a man running who has absolutely no political experience whatsoever. On the other side, we have the wife of a former president. It is a first to have both a woman and a true outsider running in the same election. However, there are some other aspects about the candidates that make this election different.

Let’s start off with the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. Those who are not red with anger at the very mention of her name are most likely left supporting her because they couldn’t bear to see Donald Trump as president. She does have her flaws, but most politicians do. The biggest thing lots of people don’t understand is that she is not truly “crooked.”

This whole issue of the Democratic National Committee being rigged should not be held against her. The party is the real one to blame. She should not be held accountable for the DNC being swayed in favor of her. She has done some shady things involving her emails while Secretary of State and she has told some white lies. In addition, the emails in question are currently under investigation. They may turn up as something, or they may turn up as absolutely nothing of concern. In regards to her financial practices, she has taken money to finance campaigns and she charges speaking fees. This does not make her a criminal. All former presidents and first ladies charge for speaking engagements; all campaigns need to be financed. Between her and her husband, there have been four presidential campaigns. That requires a lot of money. However, there is no evidence even suggesting that she has accepted any bribes. Hillary Clinton has done some shady stuff, but she has admitted to it, apologized for it, and gave us her word that she will not do anything like that as president.

Now, on to Donald Trump. To start off, Russia is often viewed as the greatest potential enemy to the US today. Russia’s head of state, Vladimir Putin, has said that Trump is “a really brilliant and talented person, without any doubt.” (To read more click here.)

The only thing I have to say about that is the saying goes “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” not “my enemy is my friend.” We have a man who is friends with our enemy as the Republican candiate for president.

I’m not going to stop there. Donald Trump’s campaign says that his net worth is in excess of $10 billion. Forbes has his net worth at approximately $3.7 billion. This confusion would all be clarified if he released his tax returns. Not only is he expecting the American people to believe him with no proof whatsoever, but also the facts that we do have suggest that he is lying. To make things worse, he expects the American people to believe him without providing factual evidence. What happens if he authorized military action against China and then goes and says he didn’t? Foreign entities will not believe him when he is lacking evidence.

If you think I’m wrong, imagine this hypothetical situation:

A Russian submarine sinks an American patrol boat in the Arctic Ocean. Vladimir Putin releases a statement saying that there was a malfunction in the submarine, and there were never any orders given from the Kremlin to fire at the boat. Then, we find out that American intelligence intercepted a message to the submarine with orders to fire. The American public becomes outraged, as Vladimir Putin says that the US has some of the worst intelligence in the world, and that American can’t trust its own intelligence. What would you think of that?

If that’s still not enough for you, let’s try this. Those of you who think Trump is a brilliant business man and would be a great president because of that—“wrong.” First off, a country is not a corporation. They cannot and should not be handled the same way. In addition, Trump really isn’t that great of a businessman. He started from the top, and never really went anywhere. He is very wealthy no matter which source you believe.

Let’s take the average of his two reported net worths. We get $6.85 billion. That’s very high, and very impressive. However, there are two things to consider. One, we do not know for sure what his net worth is— he never released his tax returns! For all we know, he’s broke! Two, he came from a very wealthy family. He is absolutely not a self-made billionaire. Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City, has a net worth of approximately $40 billion, just to put Trump’s wealth into perspective. This shows that there are people out there who are better businessmen, and are proven to be better politicians, like Bloomberg. Last, but most importantly, he has had to file for bankruptcy four times. A disturbing note to go along with it is that he has not rejected this statistic, so this may mean that the number is wrong, and there could have been more times we do not know about. To me, Trump’s silence says more than his words. Bankrupt means a company has run out of money. A good businessman would not let a business run out of money, much less do so four times.

If you’re still holding onto your “Make America Great Again” hat, I’ve still got more to say. If you’re a straight, white, Christian male of European descent, congratulations. You make up a ridiculously small minority of people not insulted in one way or another by Donald Trump. While Trump has not said anything that we know of concerning homosexuals, his running mate, Mike Pence, passed a law in Indiana legalizing anti-gay discrimination if it is justified by religion. Same ticket, so he is guilty by association. Trump has most famously stereotyped all Mexicans as rapists, criminals, and drug dealers. He has also said that he will round up all immigrants, and send them back to their countries of origin. This doesn’t really sound like “the land of opportunity” to me. We are a melting pot. We are all immigrants.

To go further, his proposed ban on Muslims goes against the very ideals this nation was founded on. The ban itself is not realistic, but the very idea goes against the fabrics of this nation. America only exists today because the Puritans were tired of religious persecution. This nation was founded with the sole principle of religious freedom. A religious ban is horribly un-American, and would make the Founding Fathers turn over in their graves.

Let’s move on from there, Trump treats women like garbage.  Well, maybe not, I doubt he would sexually assault a pile of garbage. But by the way he talks about women, you couldn’t tell. I could go on, and talk about how he waited to refute the support from former KKK leader, David Duke, or how he incites violence at his rallies against African Americans, but I’ll leave it at that. I could also go on about how he clearly and almost proudly admitted that he does not treat women with respect, but this article is starting to get long. Is your hat starting to feel a little too tight?

Let’s go back over the facts. Hillary Clinton hid her emails from Congress. She may only be running because her party is swayed in her direction. She has attacked women who have accused her husband of sexual assault, but so has Melania Trump. Hillary Clinton has made some poor decisions, and is running for president. She is not the perfect candidate, but she is qualified to say the least. She is a lawyer who fought for the rights of children, went on to become the First Lady, and then served as a Senator in New York. After that, she served as Secretary of State. Say all you want about her time as Secretary of State, but she helped end the war in Iraq. Yes, a war she voted for, but she made up for it by helping bring it to an end. Meanwhile, Donald Trump was ripping off contractors and students of Trump University, harassing, insulting, and supposedly assaulting many women, filing for bankruptcy, and making up rumors about President Obama’s citizenship. Hillary Clinton has done some bad things as a politician, but Donald Trump has done and said awful, horrendous things as a human being. Hillary Clinton is not the optimal candidate, but she is significantly better than Donald Trump. He is a threat to the values that have made America great. So yes, Hillary Clinton is the lesser of two evils. It’s like comparing a pitbull to Jeffrey Dahmer.