I Don't Want To Go On The Cart

I want to say up front: I feel fine.

I also want to acknowledge that, as a non-public figure with about the same socio-cultural profile as Jeff Dobsky (you don't know him) and Sandra Gilmartin (you saw her once coming out of a dry cleaner in a strip mall by your parents' old house in like 2004-2005, something like that), or many other people whose names I could also make up, but would have the exact same relevance to the general public that I do. The fact that they're invented and published here, ironically, makes them immediately actually more interesting than me and more internet-searchable, so there, I've just created two of my betters out of thin electronic air.

I was about to make a joke like "there are debilitating diseases that are more well known than I am," but then I realized that's probably a good, solid pillar of a functioning public health system and less of a commentary on my notoriety. If I were better known than, say, herpes, we'd all be in a huge amount of trouble. And probably a lot itchier.

Besides, it's not a great time to take shots at public health as an idea. The ground there is a bit shaky at the moment.

But it's not just because I'm a completely anonymous, faceless* public non-entity that you have no cause to be alarmed about my health, but more specifically, I'm not a) the president nor am I b) 286 years old, nor also c) completely devoid of any habits normally consistent with prolonging or preserving life.

None of these, of course, are true of Donald Trump, a near-enough-as-makes-no-difference octogenarian living on a diet of saturated fat deep fried in other saturated fats, aspartame and human grievance and whose idea of exercise is whatever unmeasurable amount of effort it takes to push the golf cart pedal enough to make it go. Admittedly, he does that a lot, but I feel confident expressing my doubts that he does it at a rate that would result in any kind of cardiovascular benefit.

Of course if I were a principled and ethical journalist on the level of a Jake Tapper, unhindered by secondary or conflicting interests, I would have definitely been locked in over the developing story this past weekend of Donald Trump's mysterious lack of public activity and all the gathering signs of physical/medical degeneration or distress. Apparently (and I missed this because I was outside, as the kids say, touching grass over the holiday long weekend) this developed into a whole buzz online and in the media around Trump's health including speculation that he had actually died, to the point where the president, apparently exactly as aware of this as I was, was pushed to speak about it from his position as a non-dead person this week.

Not only was I busy, I think I just missed it because "old person is old and has old-person stuff going on" is not much of a story, so it all just flew under my radar. Also the internet is the internet, so depending on the media I'm seeing it in, "the president might be dead" as a phrase wouldn't even necessarily register for me on, like, twitter or bluesky or whatever. That's old-school interrupt the Sunday morning infomercial broadcast kind of news if it were actually happening. Even while indirectly trying to (as I was), I wouldn't have been able to escape it.

Trump has issues. This is not new. This is also the place where, if I were a total hack, I'd be making "if he went into decline how could we even tell?" or "he can't die, the evil ones last forever" kind of half-joke remarks. But I'm not that lazy, or rather I am cursed with enough self-awareness to be embarrassed by those particular laziness tracks. All I'll say is I've never really wished harm on anyone, include Donald Trump, and not just because I already know explicitly how much JD Vance sucks. I wish the same thing I wish for Joe Biden and his health journey: independent of my judgement or opinion, an outcome commensurate to what he deserves. Read that how you want.

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*not literally, I do have a face. If I were literally a faceless guy, you probably would have heard of me.