During Trump's strange birtherism walk back last week, I experienced the biggest sense of schaudenfreude since Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio tripped over themselves to express their disapproval of Trump's claim during a debate that he didn't want anyone dying on the street. For the past five years, Trump touted this Obama was born in Kenya theory because many Republicans wanted to believe it to be true and discarded it when the theory it was no longer useful for his personal gain. What fools he made of his supporters and of the GOP that enabled and promoted his nonsense.

This year, Democrats' most forceful criticisms of the GOP and many of its voters has proven to be true in 2016. We knew most people that vote in the GOP primaries and the general election don’t care about the tenets of small government or about free market conservatism. We knew Paul Ryan wasn’t some genius policy wonk that was just dying to use his free-market savvy for his anti-poverty programs to allow the GOP to reach out to minorities, but rather someone who prioritized large tax cuts above all else, which he showed by endorsing Trump. We could have told you years ago that Chris Christie wasn’t some free-thinking, non-partisan dealmaker but a self-promoting, celebrity-obsessed bully that shut down a bridge for revenge, but now we all know. The list goes on. Now we’re vindicated and deserve a cookie for being right for so long while the GOP told us we were painting with a broad brush, that we misunderstood the GOP. Ha!

As much as I'd love to pat myself on the back, laugh and be content in my how right I've been all along, our nominee, even if she wins, will likely lead a scandal laden, tiring, dramatic administration. This Friday’s really strange birther-ism press conference reminded me of that likelihood about Clinton. The Clinton Adminsitration and will not been run like it was under No Drama Obama. The reason it reminded of this was that when Trump said that it was actually Clinton who started birtherism, leading to a rehashing of an old argument among D.C people as to whether longtime Hillary Clinton operative and sycophant, Sidney Blumenthal, was the one who pushed that Obama was not born in the United States to reporters. Nobody can quite agree if it's true. But Obama and his then-future Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, thought Blumenthal was bad news, worrisome enough to not allow him to work for Hillary Clinton at the state department. What did Clinton do? She hired him to work for the Clinton Foundation. This arrangement was particularly problematic concerning Libya, where he had business interests in Muammar Gaddafi no longer being in power. That type of behavior is legitimately bad. I truly don’t understand why seemingly level headed, pragmatist, “progressive who likes to get things done” surrounds herself with the sketchy Sidney Blumenthal, David Brock, John Podesta, Douglas Band and Lanny Davis. Nor do I understand why her foundation, which she was working for, took Saudi money while she was Secretary of State, other than for the cash.

So while there are a lot of nonsensical conspiracy theories out there about her, many of the most aggressive critics of Clinton and the people who surround her have points that are entirely valid.

So this week, Trump seems to be leading in Ohio in Florida, at least momentarily. It's within the margin of error nationally. So why fear of Trump presidency? Well, those reasons have already been hashed out by others, so I don’t need to list them all. Nuclear War, mass deportations, ethnic cleansing, and markets crashing leading to a recession are among my biggest fears.

But what’s most likely, But what's most likely is a legitimization of bigotry and conspiracy-theorizing and a post-truth presidency.

Even if one is not a member of the ethnicities that he's targeted of his attacks, everyone should fear the bigotry he's normalized, which likely will extend to everyone. The thing is, you can’t micro-target bigotry. Nor can you micro-target which pieces of lunacy and conspiracy theories will be legitimated. A Trump Presidency probably won’t bring nuclear war, though I don’t say that with a particularly high amount of confidence. But it definitely would mean a race-baiting conspiracy theorist would give the state of the union every year and that's super scary.

So while I can be a bit smug because I've been right about many things for so long about the GOP, I’m scared too. The choice this year isn't an appealing or exciting one but it’s not particularly difficult either. There simply is no equivalence between Trump and Clinton’s past transgressions and the potential problems their presidency’s pose. I really fear what would happen if the excessively secretive, deceitful, and unethical candidate doesn't beat the racist, conspiracy theorist this November. Being a smug liberal, as it turns out, isn’t so great after all.