While President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump continue their slow but (barring unforeseen circumstances) inevitable marches toward their respective party nominations, it's time to remember this salient point about the whole, sordid affair…
…voters don't think either man is really fit to be president.
The most recent indication comes from a Quinnipiac University poll. The headline number shows a slight Biden lead over Trump. Much more interesting, though, are the numbers on the candidates' fitness for office:
Physical fitness:
Biden: 35 percent say yes, 62 percent say no;
Trump: 60 percent say yes, 37 percent say no.
Mental fitness:
Biden: 34 percent say yes, 64 percent say no;
Trump: 48 percent say yes, 51 percent say no.
And yet here we are, with the two oldest candidates for office in our history (breaking the record they established in 2020, when they were also the two oldest to run) and no one who isn't fitted out in full Team Red or Team Blue regalia believes either man can handle the job.
Which means that of all the elections that have occurred in U.S. history – including the 1944 presidential race when an obviously sick Franklin Roosevelt ran for a fourth term – the choice of a vice presidential running mate might matter.Â
While we know Mr. Biden intends to stick with the deeply problematic VP Kamala Harris, Trump's choice of a running mate is open to speculation.
Though anyone hoping for the job should consider Trump's treatment of former VP Mike Pence. It makes Thomas Jefferson's crusade to have his former VP, Aaron Burr, convicted of treason seem positively quaint.
But while we're on the topic of presidential fitness for office…Franklin Roosevelt's 1944 campaign was based on a Big Lie about his health. And the press was fully complicit in keeping the public in the dark:
Newspapermen who had cultivated close ties with the White House kept Americans ignorant of the president's true condition. For more than a decade, reporters had willingly concealed Roosevelt's paralysis. Ignoring his obvious physical decline at a time when Axis propagandists heralded any sign of Allied weakness or dissension was both patriotic and in line with previous practice. Even Roosevelt's journalistic nemesis, the right-wing Chicago Tribune, published an editorial cartoon depicting a muscular, sprightly president literally running away with the Democratic nomination.
The single crack in this facade was an Associated Press photo of Roosevelt delivering his acceptance speech in which the president looked haggard, listless and lifeless. This image fueled rumors that Roosevelt was on his deathbed. The White House exiled the unfortunate photographer who snapped the offending picture.
A reminder to the claque of reporters, courtiers, sycophants and hangers-on that the public has a right to know about the physical and mental health of the presidential candidates. Anything less than fair, frank and thorough coverage is malpractice at best and a threat to democracy at worst.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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