The flipflopping you mention is what I fear most about politicians. Trump may not be a career politician, but he's shown he can flipflop with the best of them. Hillary is another one. She's been caught in so many lies she can hardly keep track of them herself. On top of that she's extremely unlikeable and untrustworthy. How can she be expected to stand up to foreign policy crises when she's been so incredibly inept regarding issues like her own damn emails and the Benghazi situation? IMO, either of those two (Trump, Hillary) would represent dangerous situations for the US were either of them to be elected POTUS. On Trump I personally don't put too much stock into him inviting the Clintons to his wedding. I may be wrong on that, but there's a lot of other things to worry about regarding Trump. For starters, he is the opposite of presidential, whatever that means, and he's bound to start WWIII by just being his bombastic, impulsive self.

The splintered Republican party you mention is one of the reasons I dislike the present two-party system, although admittedly it's what's been done pretty much since Day One. You're basically forced to follow the party line on EVERY SINGLE ISSUE out there, whether you agree with them or not. There's no room for agreeing with some Democratic principles, but other Republican ones. It takes away individuality, IMO. What you mention about extreme right and left loathing the other party, regardless of who the nominee is..... just emphasizes my point. It's wrong, IMO, not to mention short-sighted, to boil everything down to elephant vs. mule.

But what really worries me is how the quality of presidential candidates has gone way south. Is it just me? Or has this election turned into somewhat of a "who's the less bad candidate to vote for"? Of the ones left with any chance to win, there's not a lot to choose from.