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After two years under the befuddlingly tyrannical rule of a mentally-impaired geezer, our electoral standards have slid to meet the lowered expectations of our time. Now a mentally-impaired greaseball wants to be the United States Senator for Pennsylvania, and until a disastrous debate performance that was impossible to ignore, it seemed that Pennsylvanians were willing to vote for him.
To be clear, I take no pleasure in the profound illness of another person. John Fetterman suffered a stroke—a terrible thing—but he is still pursuing public office. As much as Henry Clay disliked Andrew Jackson in the 1824 presidential election, he wasn’t going to throw his support behind Secretary of Treasury William Crawford of Georgia (the election was thrown to the House of Representatives; Crawford was in third, but had suffered a major stroke and would pass away soon afterwards, with Clay giving his support to John Quincy Adams).
But we’ve grown accustomed to power-hungry wives and political parties propping up brain-dead puppets in public office. Indeed, the historians of the distant future will no-doubt look back at our time and think of it as The Age of The Impaired. We celebrate every manner of impairment—transgenderism, paralysis (both moral and physical), gluten intolerance, etc.—as some kind of special mark of holiness.
Of course, we should treat such people with compassion, but we shouldn’t be electing them to public office, no matter how good it makes us feel about ourselves to do so. Public service is hard, even for the able-bodied and clear-minded. Being a United States Senator is exceptionally difficult—and a position with incredible amounts of power and prestige.
What we saw with Fetterman—much like Marco Rubio’s glitching out in 2016—was an Establishment robot malfunctioning on live television. I’m only being mildly hyperbolic—Fetterman can only process incoming sounds via a computer. That’s a miraculous bit of technology, but do we want a cyborg serving as one of the 100 men and women of the US Senate? Even if we did, would we want one that was constantly breaking down in stressful situations?
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The Portly Politico 
Fetterman’s situation reminds me of a Danish footballer who plays in the English top flight, Christian Eriksen. Eriksen had a heart attack on the pitch (which some attribute to the jab) and was understandably away from football for a while. But then, weird as it is, he came back. Not to kick about in the lower leagues mind, where the pressure to perform is less, but at a top flight club, Manchester United. Lots of fans and media went wild, applauding Man Utd for their hiring but I found it questionable at best, horrible at worst. The pressure, the spotlight, moreover the physical endurance needed to play at this level will do his heart no good in the long term. Many of those fans cheering for Eriksen will be scratching their heads if, God forbid, Eriksen suffered an early demise. I hope that doesn’t happen but after a heart attack, to be back playing top flight football is not going to help him.
The same with Fetterman. Though he isn’t engaging in high level physical sports, he will still – if elected – be taking a high pressure job where his performances will always be scrutinised. Both he and Eriksen should have taken early retirement. Hey, their bodies, they can do whatever they like but from my view, they are not doing themselves any favours.
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