Trump and Clinton and pray, brothers and sisters

Sometimes it seems as if we, as a nation, have tumbled down the rabbit hole, landing kerplunk! in a fantasy world where up is down, right is wrong and the only people running for president are the two perhaps least qualified — and the most willing to say or do absolutely anything.

We are witnessing institutional insanity. On one hand, there is Donald Trump, whose exaggerations, clumsy misstatements and puerile attacks keep what passes for the news media nowadays hopping around like grasshoppers on a griddle. On the other, Hillary Clinton, whose nose would stretch to Topeka if she were Pinocchio. She has lied about everything from getting shot at in Bosnia, to Benghazi, to her emails. She even lies about lying; puts the crook in crooked.

With these two, when you think things cannot get weirder as they romance this bloc of voters or that, things invariably do.

Trump, for instance, has spent much time lately wooing African-Americans in a quixotic quest for votes, though he has less than the proverbial snowball's chance in winning many. Polls show a vast majority of African-Americans simply do not like him. A lot. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll showed Clinton thrashing Trump 91-1 among African-Americans. A recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found his support among black voters at 6 percent.

[Clinton and Trump spar over U.S. foreign policy at forum]

Trump, in a Wisconsin speech aimed at African-Americans, ripped Democrats for a litany of educational, economic and criminal justice policy failures. Inner cities. Unemployment. Free trade. Immigration. The whole enchilada.

Okay, he fudged a number or 12 and skated around a few pesky facts. And maybe the audience was mostly white. And, oh, heck, most African-Americans do not live in poverty or anywhere near bombed out inner cities like he said, but somehow the overall message – Democrats stink – reverberated, at least with some.

Quanell X, leader of the New Black Panther Party in Houston, responded to the speech by saying he may not like the "vessel" — really, who does? — but agreed Trump was spot on. The New Black Panther Party. Honest. Dogs sleeping with cats; lions with lambs. It's biblical.

Blacks have voted Democratic for more than 50 years, Quanell X said, "and they have not given us the same loyalty and love that we have given them. We as black people have to re-examine the relationship — where we are being pimped like prostitutes, and they're the big pimps pimping us politically, promising us everything and we get nothing in return."

Democrats as big pimps. What is not to like?

Our problem is at once simple and mind-boggling. Either candidate is a pox on the United States, if not the world. As a friend puts it: With Trump you get World War III; with Clinton, a revolution. Take your pick. The simple part? We have to pick one. Mind-boggling? One will win.

What Trump as president would do to, or for, Alaska is unclear. He has no golf courses here, no high-rises, no casinos, so he may believe Alaska still belongs to Russia. If he walks his talk, though, and as president focuses on kick-starting the U.S. economy, expanding energy production, if he pushes for resource development and the return of jobs to our shores, if he does not get us nuked, he could be great for the frozen north. He is all over the board on other issues, though, such as guns. His flips often collide with his flops, and he, like Clinton, has only a nodding acquaintance with veritas.

[Trump energy plan calls for more drilling, fewer environmental protections]

Clinton as crook-in-chief? She would be painful, slow death for Alaska, choking off Arctic development and turning the state into a vast park. It would be a demise of endless paper cuts and fingernails on blackboards. Her economic plan is simple. Bigger government, bigger taxes, bigger programs, bigger spending. Oh, and punishing those who produce. How any of that helps the economy, or brings jobs, corporations and cash back to the United States is something only the left can explain.

Ask yourself: Who would do the least damage in a country with a shrinking GDP, $19 trillion in debt, more than 90 million people out of the workforce, more than 43 million on food stamps and an economy still moon-walking out of the last recession.

Perhaps, with either, the best we can hope for is congressional gridlock, but even that is iffy with the scalawags and scoundrels in Congress, where backbones are as rare as good 6-month-old Scotch.

During a campaign speech in a very white Michigan suburb, Trump fished for African-American votes by asking, "What the hell do you have to lose?"

We as a nation are about to find out.

Paul Jenkins is editor of the AnchorageDailyPlanet.com, a division of Porcaro Communications.

The views expressed here are the writer's and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary@alaskadispatch.com. Send submissions shorter than 200 words to letters@alaskadispatch.com or click here to submit via any web browser.