As I write this, I realize that exactly one month from today, when the presidential election is held, the U.S.A. will not only decide its fate, it will also demonstrate its essential character to the world.

Will the majority of American voters opt for the shady billionaire businessman who has repeatedly proven himself to be profoundly shallow, eminently unqualified to be President, and shockingly racist, ageist, and sexist?

Or will more Americans have the good sense and maturity to choose a woman who has devoted her entire life to public service and is more qualified for the job than anyone else?

Hmmmm… Which will it be?

The world is watching.

I’m watching from Mexico, where people see Republican candidate Donald Trump for what he is – crude, rude, and lewd. They burn his effigy at public events. In San Miguel de Allende, where I now live, Donald Trump was recently officially declared “persona non grata” by the city council, which means if he ever tried to come here, they wouldn’t let him in.

As San Miguel’s Mayor Ricardo Villarreal was quoted in the city’s weekly bilingual newspaper, Atención, last month: “…This municipality does not celebrate those who attack [Mexico]. …We ask for respect. Trump insulted us in our house, and we do not want him to come.”

I mailed my absentee ballot to the States last week from this blissful Trump-free zone, and (three guesses!) I’m proud to report that I voted for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Not because she’s a woman. Not because she’s a woman close to my age (I’m two years older than she). But because she is the only wise choice. The rest of the world knows this. Why are Trump supporters so deluded?

I’ve been seeking answers to this question for months. The latest partial-answer I’ve been able to find was in a Washington Post column by Petula Dvorak published the other day titled, “Hillary Clinton is a 68-year-old woman. And plenty of people hate her for it.”

As Dvorak so rightly puts it, “…There’s misogyny, and then there’s the ageist misogyny that older women face. That undercurrent runs very deep in our culture, and it’s one of the reasons the haters hate Hillary Clinton so deeply.

“No one has talked about this much, but it’s a very real phenomenon in this election,” Dvorak adds. “The presidential nominee is confounding America because she represents a demographic that our culture secretly dislikes: older women.”

So for me the troubling question remains: Do Americans dislike older women – no matter how wise, experienced, well educated, or well qualified they are – more than they dislike crude and lewd old men?  In one month I – and the rest of the world – will know for sure.