It's not nice to make fun of the way people look, even if they are inflicting the damage on themselves.
It's sad that President Trump has no one who can convince him to tidy up, to just quit it with the ridiculous architectural comb-overs, the hair dye and the tanning spray. He could be a reasonably dignified looking older gentleman if he'd stop chasing whatever dashing self-image he has in mind. Cut his hair, wash his face and put a tailor to work on those $6,000 Brioni suits he wears (it's not the suits he wears that are the problem, it's the bagginess of the cut) and he could be a genuinely imposing presence.
Someone close to him should talk to him about this. But I fear there's no one that close to him. We all need someone to occasionally roll their eyes at us and say, "You're not going outside looking like that."
Still, for someone who doesn't exercise--for someone who apparently believes exercise is detrimental to one's health--Trump appears to be in reasonably good shape. He probably was a decent athlete in his younger days; it's been reported that he was a three-sport varsity athlete at New York Military Academy, playing baseball, basketball and soccer. (But that part about soccer wouldn't appeal to his base.)
And while I don't believe his reported golf scores any more than Bill Clinton's or Kim Jong Il's 38 under par, Trump seems to generate a little swing speed. While I wouldn't be afraid to play him for my usual stakes--no carts and a referee walks with us--he can probably play a bit.
I don't think he's 6 foot 3, but he might have been when he was younger. Men have odd ideas about how tall they are.
He carries his weight pretty well. It is a little fishy that he's officially listed at 239 pounds which conveniently keeps him from being classified as "obese" based on body mass index tables. (According to the released figures, Trump's BMI is 29.9--one more pound or one less inch of height would put him in the obese range.)
But BMI numbers are rough guidelines, easy to calculate but close to worthless as diagnostic tools. Your doctor can eyeball you and tell if you're fat. BMI isn't a great way to estimate the percent of body fat someone is carrying because it can't distinguish between fat and muscle. Because muscle is heavier than fat, there are a lot of highly conditioned athletes who would be classified as overweight or obese by BMI measures.
And BMI doesn't allow for how you carry your body fat either. Visceral fat--deep fat wrapped around one's internal organs and often indicated by a protruding belly and large waist--is dangerous, while subcutaneous fat-- the just-below-the-skin stuff that got Phil Mickelson snickered at when he claimed he had it a few years ago--is more a cosmetic issue. That said, POTUS certainly looks like he's toting around visceral fat. He could stand to lose weight. But compared to the average American, Donald Trump isn't in that bad of physical shape.
A lack of physical fitness isn't the problem with President Trump; I don't worry so much about his soundness of body and mind as I do about the state of our collective soul. It's funny that someone started calling those who doubt that the president weighs 239 pounds "girthers." He makes himself look silly but for his age he seems pretty hale.
What I do worry about is the fact we live in an age when something as routine and mundane as a physician's report on the president's fitness must be received with skepticism. There's no reason to disbelieve Ronny Jackson, the Navy physician who also treated George W. Bush and Barack Obama, when he says he says that while the president could stand to lose a few pounds he's otherwise healthy. There's no reason to think the doctor is lying when he reports "no cognitive or mental issues whatsoever" in his patient.
The problem isn't that Trump is diseased or mad, it's just that he's terrible at the job we hired him to do.
Trump is not qualified to be president because, above all, he is not a good man.
He cheats at business and in his personal life. He makes fun of the way people (especially women) look. He lies habitually, even when there is no good reason to lie. He seeks to undermine the institutions and values that have long defined American society. He is a proud bully who never accepts responsibility for his failures. He is vain, incurious and willfully ignorant. He is openly dismissive of science and all other intellectual endeavors, preferring instead the flattering assent of his gut instinct.
A lot of people read him as "authentic." A lot of us like him because he reminds us of worst selves. A lot of us would be Trump if we could, wealthy and licensed to treat the world and other human beings as props in a solipsistic fantasy. He's not the first bad person we've ever elected president. We probably elect more bad people than good people, or at least a lot of the people we elect evince more bad than good while they are in office. One of the problems with our politics is that bad people have an inherent advantage when seeking office. They are willing to do--and to have done on their behalf--things that decent people are not.
Like shut down the government and hold children and blameless "dreamers" hostage because you think you can make some political benefit out of it.
But maybe he is the first one who revels in his own badness, who sees goodness as a joke, as a sucker's game. The rest of them at least pretend to honor, to have a capacity for shame. (Go ahead and call him fat. Make fun of his hair. He doesn't care. He's rich.)
Our problem isn't Trump's physical shape, it's America's moral dissolution.
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Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@arkansasonline.com and read his blog at blooddirtandangels.com.
Editorial on 01/23/2018