American politics has reached a milestone with Hillary Clinton going beyond the number of delegates she needs for the Democratic nomination for president. It does not matter that her rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, is yet to concede defeat. In fact, Sanders has vowed to carry the struggle, as he puts it, all the way to the party convention in July. That is most unfortunate, for it not only leaves the senator looking like a sore loser but also holds his party back from uniting behind the presumptive nominee in the run-up to the November presidential election. In a rather inexplicable way, Sanders has been turning his back on tradition. After initially creating waves, especially among the young, with his rather innovative approach to the campaign, he has now fallen behind in delegate numbers and is certainly not going to be the candidate against the Republicans' Donald Trump.
By now, Sanders should have done what earlier candidates, in similar conditions, did in their times; they knew they could not come by the party nomination and gracefully withdrew, to offer support to the eventual nominee. Senator Sanders does not seem ready to do that. To all intents and purposes, it is quite likely that he will remain bitter till the end. The bigger and more dangerous likelihood is that if he fails to voice public support for Clinton, his disappointed camp followers might end up voting for Trump in large numbers. That would make things difficult for Clinton, given that in recent weeks there have been indications the Republican presumptive nominee has been going up in popularity polls. It will be tragic if Donald Trump, a man clearly unfit to occupy the White House, were to win against the experienced Hillary Clinton and then proceed to take America down a path to unpredictability laced with huge risks. It is a possibility Sanders ought not to ignore, in the interest of his country and its history.
There are, despite all the prognostications about Sanders and Trump, clear reasons why Clinton should be elected in November. She does not have the support of many women; questions of trust yet dog her; and there are the queries which she yet must answer with regard to her e-mails and her role in post-Benghazi conditions. But when all of that is said or recapitulated, one needs to recall that the former secretary of state has had criticism coming her way since her husband decided to seek the presidency --- and did win it --- in 1992. Republicans, in rabid manner, have never felt comfortable with Hillary Clinton and have done everything they could to undermine her. The violence with which Trump has been attacking her, and that on a personal basis, demonstrates the many hurdles Clinton needs to leap across in her bid to be the next US president.
At the end of the day, it is for Americans to decide who their next president will be. From outside America, though, the perspectives are clear. Electing the experienced Clinton will keep the balance. Donald Trump, as Clinton has pointed out, is temperamentally unfit to be president. It is a sentiment millions of people outside America share with her.