The 2016 election will be horrible for America. But also, endlessly entertaining.

The general election match-up is set: Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are all but certain to be the two main party candidates for president of the United States. And as my colleague Michael Brendan Dougherty aptly explained, the selection of these two utterly dishonest, self-centered, and self-indulgent louts is a despair-inducing indictment of our society.

But there's at least one upside: Even if this election is divinely ordained punishment (and it might be!), then at least I get to enjoy watching it.

And let's be honest — aside from that whole end-of-the-Republic thing, it's going to be an amazing thing to watch. If there's one thing Trump and Clinton have in common, it's that they fight hard and dirty.

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Clinton will carpet bomb Trump with everything she's got, and then some. And Trump — well, I could argue that he's going to attack her only because his poll numbers call for desperate measures. But we all know that Trump attacks people — particularly women — just because he enjoys watching people suffer.

If you look at the 2016 race as pure spectacle, it's not hard to start hoping that Clinton doesn't just attack Trump's bigoted positions, but also his character and person. (As well she should, since Trump's character is the main reason why he shouldn't be allowed within 100 feet of the nuclear codes.) Imagine if she really pushes his buttons, and, say, attacks his puny, sausage-like fingers. He'll go nuts, and it will be a sight to behold. I hope when she broaches the topic of his despicable behavior towards women, she doesn't do it in a schoolmarmy way, pivoting to a point about equality and inclusion, but goes straight for the jugular, mocking him for how insecure and pathetic he has to be to treat women that way. His head might well explode.

I hate Trump and everything he stands for with a burning passion. But I'm also a conservative. And thus, the prospect of a Clinton dragged through the mud by anyone (Trump included) really does make me tingle, and I'm only half-ashamed to admit it. Clinton's eight-figure global grifting scheme dressed up in oozing do-goodery rhetoric alone justifies it.

Trump certainly has ammo to use against Clinton. The Libya disaster. Benghazi. The server. The corruption. He's going to go all out. And it will make the spectacle of the GOP primary look like a flea circus. The greatest show on Earth is only just beginning.

If there's one virtue to this whole charade, it's that the media's red-hot liberal bias and transparent urge to do everything they can to give Hillary Her Turn so she can Break That Glass Ceiling would have blunted any Republican's attacks on Clinton. Between Trump's nastiness and his incomprehensible gift for getting attention for himself, that ain't gonna happen this time around.

I loathe mistreatment of women in general, and by the powerful in particular. But when it comes dressed up in pious, folksy sanctimony, and is aided and abetted by a media-political-industrial complex that incessantly lectures the entire world about misogyny, I hit maximum levels of fury. In the Bible, God uses pretty loathsome characters to mete out punishment. Maybe he gave us Trump for that very reason.

In the end, these two are made for each other. Astonishingly corrupt, with no regard for the truth or the rule of law. The misogynist and the politician who drapes herself in her womanhood for political gain. The crony capitalist and the capitalists' crony. The one who grinds the little people under his heels because he enjoys it, and the one who does it cold-bloodedly because it suits her. Never was there such a ripe target for such an ugly arrow. They deserve each other.

Let the Republic burn. I'll be watching with popcorn.