US President Obama saw his historic visit to Havana as an opportunity to lecture Cuba’s President Raul Castro on his country’s human rights and civil liberties — hardly the best way to make new friends and influence potential allies.

Castro snapped back pointing out that the US is no paragon of human rights either highlighting the absence of free health care, the availability of guns, torture practices at Guantanamo, police brutality and gender inequalities with regards to salaries.

There were times when an American president could go around the world proudly touting his country’s adherence to human rights and freedoms without being legitimately challenged. No longer!

Ask African Americans whose unarmed teenagers have been shot dead or beaten by the police or those who’ve received far longer prison sentences than their white counterparts for the exact same crime. And things may get worse, much worse.

If either of the Republican front-runners Donald Trump and Ted Cruz reach the Oval Office judging by their aggressive racist policies the vision of John Winthrop’s of the new American community, as a “shining city on a hill” to which Ronald Reagan often referred will be obliterated.

“In my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace…and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here…” Reagan said in his farewell speech.

According to a recent CBS/New York Times poll, Trump and Clinton are “viewed more unfavorably than any front-runner for either party since 1984, when CBS began polling the question.”

Some 57 percent of voters view Trump unfavorably as opposed to 51 percent not enamored with Clinton. A mere 28 percent view the Republican Party favorably while the Democratic Party forges ahead with 46 percent. Indeed, various polls place Clinton way in front if the presidential election were held today.

Clinton certainly comes with a lot of messy baggage from a property investment scandal early in her husband’s presidency to her less than transparent version of events in Benghazi and her private email server. But unlike her Republican rivals she isn’t tarred as a racist or a bigot, she doesn’t get down and dirty with personal attacks and her overall demeanor could be characterized as presidential. She is also the only one running with experience in government or any real grip of diplomacy, security requirements and foreign policy.

Trump, on the other hand, has never held public office and appears to create his policies on the hoof. He has admitted he’s not up on foreign policy but says he’s a fast learner. His recent announcement of his foreign policy team has gone down like a lead brick with his party elites. None of them are household names and few have any hands-on experience in the field. He vows to make America great again and keep his country safe by building walls to deter Mexican “drug dealers and rapists,” barring Muslims from entering and will order surveillance on American-Muslim communities. That approach is nothing but a recipe for anger, alienation and reduced influence.

Both Trump and Cruz have gone beyond the pale by denigrating each others’ wives, which speaks to what kind of men these are let alone would-be presidents of the most powerful country on earth. The spat couldn’t have been nastier.

An attack ad featuring a shot lifted from GQ magazine of Trump’s unclad wife sprawled on a fur rug while handcuffed to a briefcase, disseminated by a Cruz-supporting Super PAC, was captioned “Meet Melania Trump, your next First Lady…” Trump tweeted “Be careful Lyin’, Ted, or I will spill the beans on your wife.”

“Donald, if you try to attack Heidi, you’re more of a coward than I thought,” answered Cruz. Trump then put out an unflattering photo of Cruz’s wife juxtaposed beside a glamour shot of Melania with the message “A picture is worth a thousand words,” pitting their wives against each other in beauty pageant-style.

Imagining either as America’s next president is a stretch too far, although there are many months of campaigning ahead and the US public is known to be fickle. Hillary Clinton will need body armor to fend off the brickbats when she and the Republican pick go head-to-head this autumn. They will stoop to any low and break just about any taboo in an attempt to bring her down.

For the Middle East there will be no good ending to this race. Hillary will offer more of the same but the alternative, especially Trump, will likely present a danger to the region and other areas of the world. As the Economist Intelligence Unit portends a President Trump would be a global threat on a par with terrorism citing his hostility toward free trade, his banning of Muslims, his accusations against China and his “militaristic tendencies” toward Middle Eastern states that could serve as a terrorist recruitment tool.

That says it all! Our destiny is in the hands of the American voting public. God give them wisdom!