So the Trump physician has declared the president to be in ‘excellent health’. One might have thought that after years of fast food, late-night tweeting and a serial disregard for medical advice, the man would resemble a cadaver. But no. The White House doctor assures us that Trump is fit as a fiddle. Meanwhile, UK medical experts have rolled their eyes so hard they nearly fell out of their sockets. They call it a PR stunt. And they are right. This is not medicine. This is theatre. The kind of theatre that would have made a Roman emperor grin.
Let us be clear. The presidential physical has become a political sacrament. It is a ritual in which the high priest of the White House Medical Unit anoints the leader with the oil of perpetual vigour. The results are always the same. The president is in excellent health. He is the fittest man ever to hold office. He could wrestle a bear. He could outrun a cheetah. This is the language of propaganda, not diagnosis.
What is truly galling is the complicity of the press. Headlines trumpet the ‘excellent health’ verdict without a shred of context. They treat it as news. They do not ask who paid for the tests. They do not request independent verification. They simply parrot the official line. This is how decadent democracies die. Not with a bang but with a bland press release.
The UK experts who dismissed this as a PR stunt should be commended. They understand what their American counterparts have forgotten: that trust is earned through transparency, not performance. In Britain, we have our own troubles with political medical secrecy, but at least we retain the capacity for scepticism. We have not yet descended into the full-blown farce where a doctor’s report reads like a campaign brochure.
The truth is that presidential health is a matter of national security. If the commander-in-chief is unfit, the public deserves to know. And if he is fit, the evidence should be overwhelming. A one-page letter with exclamation marks does not suffice. It is an insult to the intelligence of the electorate.
But then, we live in an age of insult. An age where truth is malleable, where experts are mocked and where a five-year-old could spot the flaws in the narrative. The Fall of Rome was preceded by a similar disdain for institutional rigour. The emperors declared themselves healthy, the people accepted the declaration, and the barbarians sharpened their swords.
Let us hope that we are not heading for the same end. Let us hope that the UK experts continue to speak truth to power. And let us hope that the American public starts asking the right questions. Because if we cannot trust the doctor’s report, what can we trust?
Until then, we shall watch the theatre with a mix of amusement and dread. The show must go on. Even if the performer is not quite as healthy as he claims.
