That skepticism fuels my gut reactions to Donald Trump and the Republican Convention that nominated him as standard bearer for the presidency of the United States.
To my eyes, the convention was a disaster starting with the plagiarism by Mrs Trump of Mrs Obama's speech of 2008 when introducing her husband, Barack Obama, as the Democratic nominee. The mismanagement of that unforced error, with denials, projections of blame, pathetic excuses and final falling on her sword by speech-writer Meredith McIver highlighted the growing perception of Trump's personal slapdash management.
Things went downhill from there. The convention was not so much a circus as a sideshow with the most bizarre characters and statements becoming ordinary.
Former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani cast himself as Reverend Cotton Mather of the Salem witch trials and stirred the crowd to a refrain of: "Guilty, Guilty, Guilty!" at the name of Hillary Clinton and her alleged "crimes".
The entire convention can be distilled to two words: Hillary and Trump. All the ills of this world were attributed to her - and, finally, Trump, accepting the nomination, painted a picture of an unrecogniseable America. Its streets in riot; its citizens killing each other; it's an America in danger from Mexicans, Muslims and terrorism - all attributable to Clinton and Obama.
He, Donald Trump, was the answer. He would make America great again.
As frightening as was this performance, worse was the report that he had offered to prospective vice-presidential hopefuls that he planned to delegate domestic and foreign policy to the VP. Trump would only be occupied with making America great again.
The trouble is that Hillary Clinton is the weakest candidate the Democrats have nominated in decades. She remains uninspiring to all but her most ardent supporters, giving the impression to voters of a hard-working wonky student, a policy nerd but without an overriding vision.
Polls show that 67 per cent of the electorate do not trust her. Although that distrust has been stoked by her Republican opponents, whose 25 years of attack saw its fruition in the visceral hatred expressed in Cleveland with calls for her execution, there is her own contribution.
In a largely sympathetic analysis of enmity towards her called Hating Hillary (New Yorker, February 26, 1996), Professor Henry Louis Gates articulates the negative view.
"[Her critics] look at Hillary Clinton and they see Mrs Jellyby, a Dickens character in Bleak House who is as intent on improving humanity as she is cavalier toward actual human beings, neglecting her home while pursuing charity abroad - 'telescopic philanthropy'."
In sum, "a type of do-gooding liberal, a zealous reformer with a heart as big as all Antarctica".
The problem with Hillary is that her supporters need to rationalise her mistakes as she seems incapable of the humility of acknowledging them. That's scary, as it is how we all learn.
As the Democratic Convention was to begin, the chair, Debbie Shultz Wasserman, was forced to resign when leaked emails showed the "rigging" of the campaign favouring Hillary Clinton.
With these two nominees, Trump and Clinton, both distrusted, the electoral campaign looks like a race to the bottom. Or, quoting, Bette Davis: "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy ride."
■Jay Kuten is an American-trained forensic psychiatrist who emigrated to New Zealand for the fly fishing. He spent 40 years comforting the afflicted and intends to spend the rest afflicting the comfortable.
