America is proclaimed the greatest country in the world by many of its citizens. Fictional news anchor Will McAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels) gave a famed response on The Newsroom (an HBO show written by Aaron Sorkin) which you can watch here. I highly suggest you do. Whether you believe America to be the greatest country in the world or not, there is no denying that it is a world's superpower and one of the most important countries in the world.

Commonly, the American president is known as “The Leader of the Free World.” Since this is the case, it leads to a lot of interest and importance in presidential elections held here in the United States, and the 2016 election is turning out to be one of the most interesting, and frightening ones in American history. On both sides of the aisle there are strong and radical candidates taking the establishments by storm and earning delegates at unexpected rates, and this is a cause of concern.

First, let’s start with the less confusing primary race, the Democratic Party. The race only featured around six candidates who had a chance to be a major player. Only three made it to the Iowa Caucus, and only two to New Hampshire. Candidate number one is the establishment candidate, the overall favorite to be our 45^th president, and a former first lady and Secretary of State. Candidate number two is a democratic socialist who has energized the nation’s college students and is attempting to change the landscape of America.

• One quick point on how close this election seems to be vs. how close it actually is: Most political outlets have candidate number one, Hillary Clinton, holding an enormous lead with 1,134 delegates compared with candidate number two, Bernie Sanders, at 502 delegates. That is a huge difference, but in reality Clinton has 658 to Bernie’s 471, much less of a difference. These websites are assuming super delegates, delegates to conventions that go unfledged to either candidate and may vote for who they want. The true delegate difference is 187, which isn’t a crazy amount, considering there are four individual states left who have more delegates than that.

These two candidates are both equally alarming if they win their primary. Hillary’s potential presidency is largely believed to be a continuation of the Obama administration and a cementation of Obama’s policies, and there are accusations that it would be Bill Clinton really running the show. Bernie’s presidency would be very unpredictable and his ideas and policies could harm America for years to come, and there are also concerns with his age. A problem for both of them would be being elected with the possibility of Republicans still holding Congress and/or the Senate, effectively rendering the government in a stalemate.

Now onto the tumultuous race for the nomination in the Grand Old Party’s nomination. As I write this, Trump, Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich are still duking it out for the chance to take on one of the Dems in November. Tonight we will hear back from four states (Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho, and Hawaii) about their incredibly important delegates and see who has gained and or lost ground.

This primary is currently being led by businessman Donald Trump, the outspoken and over the top candidate from New York with no political experience and an iffy background in conservatism. Behind him is Senator Ted Cruz, a young lawyer and first-term senator from Texas who is an Evangelical candidate and a staunch conservative. In third is the boy-wonder candidate Marco Rubio. Originally the favorite, Rubio, who is an establishment senator and career politician from Florida, has underperformed across the board and needs a big showing on March 15^th to get back in the race. Clinging to fourth place with his home state of Ohio coming up and a few noteworthy endorsements is John Kasich, the candidate on the Republican side with the best resume, but who lacks youth or a branded name. As for the actual race, Trump has a clear lead, but Cruz isn’t too far behind and Rubio is still within striking distance, although we don’t know for how long.

These candidates raise some issues just as the Dems did. Trump is seemingly unelectable in a general election as the middle ground independents or even the right-leaning independents will distance themselves from him and vote for whoever is running in opposition to him. Also, the Republican Party will not have the same kind of backing as they do for most elections with big donors possibly staying away from association with Trump (Trump’s lack of strong stance in support Israel a few debates ago will definitely not help him get money in a general from Sheldon Adelson, a pro-Israeli Jewish donor who spent 100 million last cycle). Ted Cruz is more electable than Trump, but he wouldn’t capture many centrists, and would have to rely heavily on the right leaning population, people who are angry with Obama and his policies, or if he runs against Bernie, the people scared of any form of socialism. Rubio seems to have the highest electability, but if he doesn’t show up in the primaries, none of that matters, and Kasich is not attackable, but lacks the ability to energize the base.

The Republicans really did themselves in earlier on the race. Rubio was their predicted nominee and their best chance, but Christie and Jeb made it their personal mission to tear Rubio, the frontrunner establishment candidate, down even if they went down with it, Kasich grabbed some of Rubio’s votes, and his chances of winning states on Super Tuesday. Trump and Cruz have focused their attack ads on Marco, and he is battered and in bad shape. Instead of uniting to defeat Trump and then fighting it out between themselves they allowed Trump to fester and grow into a real formidable force.

So the election looks like it will be boiling down to a Trump-Clinton or maybe Cruz-Clinton race if Bernie and Rubio don’t battle back significantly. Let’s go with the first scenario, which involves the two frontrunners and wraps back around to the concern I expressed in the beginning of the article. If Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were to be the two candidates for president, many of the voters in America would feel like they have absolutely nowhere to turn. Hillary is possibly owned by Wall Street, has had more than one scandal on her plate in the last five years, and represents the last eight years of the country. Each of these three things could turn off many different types of voters. Trump is a completely different monster who has threatened to build a wall on the Mexican border and start trade wars with China. Neither of these candidates are too great, and Cruz and Sanders have their major issues also. American politics don’t seem to be in great shape.

And this is why we have a major problem, why I am frightened for the future of our nation, and why America may soon not even be in the same sentence as “greatest nation in the world.” Our presidential race is a circus and I’m sure that other countries are laughing a little bit extra at us right now. When it comes down to it, America has always had problems, and we have always made it through them, but this problem is much more grave than any we have ever had and a fail to solve this problem could lead to four, or even eight, of the worst years in the 240 since we decided that we were not going to sit around and let King George III impose his will on us. I wish the country good luck, I plead to the voters to come to your senses sooner rather than later, and I would just like to say, G-d Bless the United States of America.