With fresh, bizarre information coming to light every day, this election season has turned news channels like CNN and Fox News into socially condoned reality TV shows. It seems like this election season could easily have a second season on E! News.
Most recently, the campaign’s had as much medical drama as an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. On Sept. 11, pneumonia caused Hillary Clinton to lose her balance at a 9/11 memorial event in New York City. She had to be escorted from the ceremony, and after hours of silence from her campaign, it was announced that she’d been diagnosed with the illness.
Rumors of Clinton’s health have plagued her campaign for months, adding to criticism over her lack of transparency. That issue, which began with the email scandal, continues now after she withheld information about her health for days until she physically couldn’t stand to keep it from the public.
According to her campaign, she had received the pneumonia diagnosis two days prior to the incident, making it seem like Clinton was planning on keeping her diagnosis a secret. This naturally leads us to the question of what other ailments she may have hiding in her records.
Republicans have taken advantage of Clinton’s minor bout of ill health an opportunity to idolize their golden cow, Donald J. Trump. Trump insists that the public can rest assured if he were to win the election, since he has been given a clean bill of health from Dr. Harold Bornstein.
“[Trump’s] strength and physical stamina are extraordinary” and his “laboratory test results are astonishingly excellent” Dr. Bornstein said in a letter last year. He has also claimed that Trump would be the healthiest person to ever sit in the White House if he is in fact elected. The doctor, who resembles The Dude more than he does a medical practitioner, could feasibly be the same guy that wrote North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il’s biography. Does Trump also have the power to alter the weather simply with his thoughts, and shoot 11 holes-in-one?
It’s obvious that if we leave the candidates to their own devices, they may as well write, date and sign their own bills of health. Not that anyone can blame them — with the media and opposing campaigns constantly scavenging for anything to expose, it’s no wonder why both candidates have disclosed as little of their records as possible.
But the American public still has the right to know what’s going on, even if it means letting the country in on the conversations that happen in little paper gowns. Candidates should have to lay themselves bare.
We live in an age where privacy is no longer a value, virtue or right. Like it or not, presidential candidates who run in our modern world know this. Clinton’s marital issues have been combed through meticulously; Trump’s business failures have been mocked and memed without abandon.
In fact, Trump embraced this on Thursday, when he joined the likes of Charlie Sheen and DJ Khaled by appearing on The Dr. Oz Show. In the episode, Trump revealed his medical records. While Trump’s willingness to open up to the public is commendable, the sensational manner in which he did it somewhat defeated the purpose. It saddens me that the American public has come to expect, and even buy into, such flamboyant acts of showmanship.
To eliminate the media frenzy and cesspool of rumors, candidates should be required, after being nominated at their party’s convention, to release their medical records.
The media would no longer have as much room to speculate about what obscure diseases the candidates have that disqualify them, and the public would then have more time and attention to focus on policy, which should be its main concern in the first place.
I’m not calling for any candidate to be disqualified based on their bill of health. That would lead down a nasty, nauseating rabbit hole. And it’s not like all of our past presidents have had Herculean health. Even FDR had polio.
I trust that the American public could form its own opinion regarding the candidates’ health, and therefore the people should be given the proper, accurate information that they deserve. A step in this direction of increased transparency is a step toward solely policy- and idea-driven politics, instead of the America’s Next Top Candidate reality show that we have playing now.
Contact CU Independent Opinion Columnist Kim Habicht at kim.habicht@colorado.edu.
