The emails she has tried to conceal from public scrutiny could easily remind people of the Watergate scandal and the secret tapes of former US President Richard Nixon. Her rich political experience now seems to be a liability rather than an asset.

Meanwhile, the two candidates' foreign policy approaches are also equally alarming.

A Trump administration might also turn away the Syrian refugees his country should take in. They have lost their homes because of a bloody and long-running war Washington has helped spark and sustain.

As for the former US secretary of state, Clinton is believed to push a hawkish doctrine. Under a Clinton administration, more overseas military adventures would not come as a surprise.

The tactic of blaming Russia for the leaked emails would not do much to boost the Clinton campaign, but would make a President Clinton harder to reach out to a country she might grudgingly find necessary to work with on many of the world's pressing affairs, such as ending the war in Syria.

The ballots are now being cast, and whatever the results might be, only troubles seem to be guaranteed, both for the United States and for the world.