It’s election season, so as a serious journalist (I get most of my news from Clickhole) I’m supposed to endorse a candidate or something. Because I’m also a music columnist, I have no choice but to ignore policy positions, personal background, and temperament―I’ll judge the candidates off of their music taste instead.

Between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, neither actually have any musical ability. So we’re going to have to stretch it.

Hillary’s campaign released the Official Hillary 2016 Playlist, where you can “rock out, Hillary 2016 style,” to 23 peppy songs by the likes of Kelly Clarkson, Juanes and Pharrell Williams. Disagree with her politics if you want, but she has an interesting selection.

All in all, the official Hillary Clinton Spotify account has the appropriate number of girl-power playlists (2), the appropriate number of Rick Ross guest verses (1), and the appropriate Beyoncé song (Run the World / Girls).

When “Clinton” and “music” appear in the same sentence, we can’t forget that time Bill Clinton played saxophone on the Arsenio Hall Show in 1992. It was truly one of the first cool president moments™:

As John Mulaney puts it, up until the 1990’s, America “had never seen a cool president before.” Previous presidents had tried, but they never tried to appeal specifically to the younger generation.

When Bill Clinton started appearing on pop culture staples like MTV and Arsenio, he changed the presidential image. To his fans, he wasn’t just another old white guy hoping to be able to boss around more old white guys; he was a new future.

Meanwhile, the following excerpt speaks volumes about Trump. In his autobiographical book “Trump: The Art of the Deal,” Trump claims that he gave a music teacher a black eye in second grade, saying, “I didn’t think he knew anything about music.” 

Trump is truly the Boss Hogg of the 2016 election.

He allegedly creates his own campaign playlists to blast at his rallies, and his taste leans heavily towards Twisted Sister (not surprised). I can’t find the full playlists on Spotify, so I cannot make much more of a comment.

We’ve touched upon music in the Clinton family, but it’s not like Trump’s family members haven’t tried to sing before:

16 Thoughts on “Like A Bird,” released in 2011 by Tiffany Trump

1) Diamonds are so shimmery / special things uncover me

2) Oh god, rising strings

3) Is this English?

4) Everybody’s partying / I just want serenity

5) This sounds like the soundtrack to an Emirates Airlines safety video

6) Oh my god that chorus

7) Likeabirdlikeabirdlikeabirdlikeabird

8) It sounds like it was translated from English to Arabic and then back to English

9) Oh, a rap verse is exactly what this needed

10) Shoutout to Sprite!

11) SHINE LIKE ALUMINUM FOIL IN THE CLUB

12) This is what it would sound like if someone from Kidz Bop went solo

13) This is such a drunk mom song

14) The instrumental sounds like computer-generated music

15) SO FAR AWAY

16) I’m endorsing Clinton.