If there's one thing that Kiwis can take from the US Presidential campaign it's that we can be damn thankful for the political system we have.

MMP may be much maligned, but when compared to the political duopoly that dominates the US, it is a paradise alongside a festering wasteland.

The dominance of the two major political parties in the US, the marginalisation of any potential alternatives, and the lip service paid to the voting public all seems to have combined in the perfect storm that has become Clinton versus Trump.

It is not hard to see why, in a political system dominated by favours, influence and corporate donations, that voters on both the left and the right have been captured in the wave of anti-establishment disenchantment that have characterised the Bernie Sanders campaign and also, in more visceral and angry form, the Trump campaign.

On one hand you have Clinton, a veteran of 40 years public service, yet perceived as a product of the system and tarred by the commercial connections of her political donors and donors to the Clinton Foundation.

On the other you have Donald Trump. A man who has brought political discourse to new lows, a person who has all but desecrated the legacy of Lincoln, and a politician who abandoned any pretence of truth in politics.

Politicians of all stripes have a tendency to bend or massage the truth. But Trump appears to have neither time nor inclination for truth at all. He's not so much a denier of facts as he is a murderer of truth. His relationship to it is somewhat akin to that of Jack the Ripper to London prostitutes. It's a sad indictment on the GOP that a man so patently unfit for the Presidency has been allowed to rise as far as he has.

This brings me back to MMP and why we’re lucky to have it. For all the perils of tails wagging the dog under MMP it does at least allow for a more honest political landscape. Those of the more radical political views, which under FPP, would have lurked within the factional wings of the two main parties are now out in the open in their own political vehicles. While it’s not to say that radicals still don't exist within the two main parties, it's fair to surmise National and Labour radicals of the 2010s are but pale shadows of their predecessors three decades ago.

MMP has been a safety valve. It's allowed for the fringe, the niche and the extremes of left and right to have a voice, and it's done so in a manner where the major political parties are no longer so vulnerable to capture by extremism.

For that we should be truly thankful.

Felix Marwick is Newstalk ZB's Chief Political Reporter.