Trump is Unhealthy. So What?

I’ve commented about this a couple of times but I thought it was worth writing a (hopefully short) post about it, since it’s all over the Internet.

Trump has a bruised hand. Anyone who’s taken care of old people knows that their skin becomes more delicate and subject to bruising as they age. Even small bumps can yield pretty ugly looking bruises.

Trump has swollen legs. Perhaps he’s in mild congestive heart failure. Again, something old people have and it’s treatable. I know at least one old person who looked terrible for a short period of time until her heart meds were adjusted, and that terrible look included swollen legs. That was at least 5 years ago and she’s doing fine.

Trump might also be prone to clotting, another old person thing. He might be on blood thinners. That would cause more bruising.

This is all speculative because, unlike every President in the past few decades, Trump doesn’t disclose his health information. What we do know is that his family tends to live well into their 80s (except for his alcoholic brother), so chances are Trump will make it to 2028.

Also, on cognitive decline: he certainly is showing some signs of that. But he’s always been a blatherer. The real index of his cognitive decline is that things are getting done in the second Trump administration. He’s surrounded himself with people who are pretty good at breaking laws to get him what he wants. A lot of the ineptitude of the first Trump term came about because he micromanaged his appointees and staff, and did his usual terrible job. In some ways, his cognitive decline is bad for the country.

This brings us to the really important point: if Trump died tomorrow, Trumpism would live on. MAGA would still be here. JD Vance would keep the status quo or make things worse. (My guess is worse.) Stephen Miller would be calling the shots on immigration, so ICE would still be roaming the streets. RFK Jr would still be dismantling our healthcare system. Perhaps we wouldn’t have some of the tariff chaos, but most of the rest of it would be there.

The political good of Trump dying is that there are a lot of MAGA types who love Trump but couldn’t be bothered to vote for another Republican. But those folks weren’t going to turn out for midterms anyway. Trump’s death would do very little to change the next few years of our common disaster.

I don’t want to judge people for their hobbies, so if a Trump deathwatch is yours, that’s fine. But the amount of time and attention this has been occupying is, to use an overused term correctly for once, a distraction.