The choice America faces Nov. 8 is as stark as it gets. This is an election between a thoroughly qualified candidate and a challenger whose campaign itself keeps descending into disarray. A candidate who understands America's vital role in the world, and a rival who reduces foreign policy to slogans. A candidate who could be this nation's first female president and a man who stoops to shamefully degrading talk about women.

With a choice so clear, we enthusiastically endorse Hillary Clinton for president of the United States.

This surely comes as no surprise to regular readers of this page, given our editorials over the past year denouncing specific elements of the campaign of Donald J. Trump. Yet we believe it is important to add our voice to those of news organizations around the nation that have overwhelmingly supported Mrs. Clinton and opposed Mr. Trump.

This is not, as Mr. Trump would likely suggest, evidence of a rigged system or some vast media conspiracy. The news organizations that have come out for Mrs. Clinton and against Mr. Trump run the spectrum from large to medium to small. They are, by and large, local newspapers like this one, run by your fellow citizens and neighbors. With but a handful of exceptions in the entire country, those that have weighed in have all endorsed Mrs. Clinton.

That, too, is hardly a surprise. Mrs. Clinton is, as many have observed, one of the most qualified people to ever run for the presidency. She has seen the workings of the White House as both first lady during Bill Clinton's two terms, and as Secretary of State in the administration of President Barack Obama — who brought her on board even after their 2008 primary fight for the Democratic nomination.

She also knows the workings of Congress, having served as a U.S. Senator from New York. For all the partisan attacks over the years that have targeted her, and her husband, she showed in the Senate how people can put aside political differences and work across the aisle for the public good. America desperately needs that approach today.

Everywhere we look, Mr. Trump falls short in this area. He bullied and insulted his way to the Republican nomination. Many in his party have only grudgingly endorsed a man whom some will only call "the party's nominee." The embarrassment he has brought to a self-proclaimed party of "family values" — including a bigoted criticism of a judge of Mexican descent and an old video of him bragging about sexually abusing women — caused many in his own party to denounce him. His claim that he will surround himself with the "best" people rings hollow from a man who is on his third campaign manager.

Mrs. Clinton's platform, too, stands in marked contrast to Mr. Trump's. Where independent analyses show that hers would not dramatically increase the national debt, his would inflate it by trillions. Mrs. Clinton seeks to raise taxes on the wealthy to help pay for some of her proposals, including shoring up Social Security. Mr. Trump offers little more than trickle-down tax-cut fantasies, with most of the benefits going to rich people like himself.

Where Mr. Trump offers vague assurances that his tax cuts will spur unbelievable numbers of American jobs and all-but-impossible levels of economic growth, Mrs. Clinton proposes realistic ideas — debt-free higher education and relief for people with existing student debt; a higher national minimum wage; incentives for companies to share profits with workers and create jobs in this country; disincentives for corporations to hide revenue overseas. Mrs. Clinton would preserve the Affordable Care Act while working to fix its acknowledged flaws; Mr. Trump mouths a "repeal and replace" mantra and leaves it to voters to trust him, as with so many of his promises, to figure out the details.

Beyond their many differences on domestic issues are perhaps even starker contrasts on foreign policy, an area where Mrs. Clinton has years of experience. Mr. Trump spouts nationalistic, slogan-driven platitudes. He rails against U.S. missteps abroad that he himself supported, such as the invasions of Iraq and Libya. He talks blithely of allowing more nations to acquire nuclear weapons, speaks casually of threatening the NATO alliance, and talks in conciliatory, admiring language of Russian strongman Vladimir Putin. He claims, with frightening hubris, to be smarter than any general, and says he has a plan to destroy the terror group Islamic State, yet keeps it as secret as the tax returns he has yet to make public.

Mrs. Clinton, on the other hand, recognizes the complexity of the Middle East and the need to continue the focused campaign to degrade and eventually destroy ISIS. She understands that both nuclear proliferation and nuclear war are not topics that presidents can just shoot their mouths off about.

If there is one big surprise in this election, it's that Mr. Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire developer and reality TV star, got as far as he did in achieving the Republican nomination. Not only is he unready for the presidency, he wasn't even ready to run for it. Twice he has had to overhaul his top campaign staff, and many times he has had to backtrack on statements, such as his off-the-cuff pronouncement that women should be punished for having abortions. He seemed to have barely studied for the three debates. The country cannot afford a president obsessed with his poll numbers but uninterested in the details of policy and governing.

There is no question that Mr. Trump is one of the most interesting candidates to ever run for U.S. president; he could probably thank the "mainstream media" that he routinely vilifies for all the billions of dollars worth of free exposure they have given him. Being interesting, however, is not the same as being worthy of the immense responsibility of the presidency. The last century gave us more than enough interesting people — megalomaniac dictators who still fascinate us, but who brought their countries and the world tyranny, persecution, and genocide.

We do not make such a reference lightly, nor do we use it to obscure concerns about Mrs. Clinton's own faults, chief among them a penchant for privacy that led her to use a personal email account in violation of federal policy. But that pales beside Mr. Trump's almost daily lies, well documented over the course of the campaign, and the much darker side of his candidacy.

Over the last 15 months, Mr. Trump has tapped some of the most disturbing and despicable themes America has seen in a modern, major-party campaign. He launched his candidacy by vilifying Mexican immigrants as drug dealers, rapists and murderers as the basis for his ridiculous plan to erect a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, and round up and expel millions of undocumented residents. He called for a total ban on Muslim immigration, milking and stoking Americans' fears of terrorism. For the last several months, he has suggested that his supporters engage in voter intimidation by going to polls in election districts in minority neighborhoods, presumably to catch all that imagined voter fraud. He has repeatedly degraded women in the foulest misogynistic terms. He has been embraced by — and has been slow to renounce — white supremacist elements of the far right fringe. As a final desperate, divisive, destructive strategy, he has questioned the legitimacy of our entire election system should he lose.

More Information To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion See More Collapse

By his temperament alone, Mr. Trump is utterly unfit to occupy the office held by such figures as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama.

And by her experience, empathy and discipline, and armed with a dignity that has withstood withering attacks, Mrs. Clinton clearly is ready to be our next president.