Politics and other weirdness

As usual when I wake up at an hour when I really don't want to be awake, my mind is wandering off on odd tangents. Like Hillary Clinton's colostomy bag.

Yep. You read that right. Colostomy bag. Now, I know that there's been a lot of bizarre speculation by some right-wing commentators, radio talk show hosts, and others, including The Donald, that Hillary's health is Not Good. The usual speculation falls into one of two categories: she's suffering from some unspecified neurological disorder that goes back many years or she's never recovered from a head injury she incurred when she fell a couple years ago.

Naturally, given the nature of Internet rumors and weirdness in general, somehow one or both of those conditions have resulted in her (a) wearing Depends, (b) wearing a colostomy bag, or (c) both. WTF? I can understand the mental gymnastics involved in going from "unspecified neurological disorder" to Depends. After all, one of the things that happens in degenerative disorders like ALS and Huntington's chorea is that as nerves die a person loses control over various bodily functions, like bladder and bowel control. But a colostomy bag? Is this projection because everyone knows all politicians are full of crap and it's got to go somewhere?

I don't know. It just struck me as more than a tad bizarre, like maybe the person (or persons) indulging in that particular fantasy have no clue what a colostomy bag is -- they just know it can't be good. And it is a step up from the Hillary wears Depends line. Let's face it. The woman is less than 2 months away from turning 69. If she wears Depends, she's got a lot of company. Have any of these people looked in the personal care section of Walgreens or Family Dollar lately? Thanks to the proliferation of aging baby boomers, adult diapers are a growth industry. Companies that make "feminine hygiene products" have finally figured out there were a lot of women in their 50s and 60s who were buying mini and maxi pads as sneeze protection. Always has joined Depends and Poise in marketing pads that protect against bladder leakage. And older women aren't the only ones with aging bladder issues. If they were, Depends wouldn't sell "Man Guard" pads. Slight digression (as usual). I love that name. It's like they're not just selling a pad, they're selling armor, a super comfy jock strap.

In any case, the whole Hillary has one foot in the grave fantasy is classic magical thinking. Her opponents can't come up with a good argument against her policies (it's hard to when the woman is farther to the right than Eisenhower was) so they're hoping people will start worrying about how old and frail she is.

The problem with that line of reasoning, of course, is that The Donald is two years older than her and bears a startling resemblance to an Oompa Loompa, except a lot less healthy. He's an overweight geezer who has trouble speaking in complete sentences. Maybe. It hit me when I heard part of his press conference when he went to Mexico yesterday that he really has been playing his supporters for fools. He used actual polysyllables when he did the press conference. There was none of his usual speaking at maybe a 3rd grade level and repeating catch phrases over and over. I had heard this version of Trump emerges occasionally, that he can be an articulate adult, but yesterday for some reason it registered with me. Holy wah, he really is a remarkable con artist. I don't know if that quote that kicks around about him saying that if he ever got into politics he'd run as a Republican because the typical Republican voter is so easy to fool is true or not, but based on Trump's performance, it should be.

So what, I wonder, did he and President Pena Nieto chat about? Did The Donald tell him to relax, the talk about the wall was pure b.s. just to keep the rubes happy? Why did The Donald go to Mexico at all?  And, even bigger mystery, why would Pena Nieto want to do a a face to face with The Donald when his own popularity is tanking? And does anyone really care?

But back to the subject of The Donald's health. In his case, the speculation tends to be about what's between his ears. In a way it's similar to the speculating about Hillary's unspecified neurological problems, except The Donald's has a name: dementia. Lots and lots of speculation that he's in the early stages of some form of senile dementia. Could be Alzheimer's, could be one of the various other types caused by things like atherosclerosis, whatever. The man has always had a giant ego, but now, at least according to the speculation, he's slid over the edge into borderline psychosis with his megalomania and narcissism. I don't know. I have days when I say he reminds me of the some of the patients I dealt with long, long ago when I worked in a nursing home. You know, if he wasn't rich (or assumed to be rich), his adult children would be looking into getting him into assisted living or a memory care unit. But if a lot of his public persona is based on what he thinks is going to play best with his audience, who knows? Can't really fault him for the megalomania and narcissism -- they're part of the job description for most politicians. You've got to have a humongous ego to go into politics to begin with, and then to think that you can be President? That's ego on a size most people will never know. Unlike most politicians, though, Trump has never played the game of pretending to be nothing out of the ordinary. So is he crazier than anyone else currently in politics? Or is he just crazy in a way we're not used to seeing quite so blatantly revealed?