Sick Democracy

The political and media unrest surrounding Hillary Clinton’s pneumonia is a reflection of, among other things, the health of American democracy.

In a healthier political world, the results of presidential candidates’ medical check-ups would be published as a matter of course, and Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, who are 69 and 70 years old respectively, would have the humility to admit that they’re as human as anyone. Instead, neither of them has really shown any transparency with regard to their medical appointments — him less than her, in fact. Indeed, it’s very hard to believe that Mr. Trump, who stuffs his face with junk food and brags about it, would be “the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency,” as his gastroenterologist has claimed.

That said, all they’re doing is going along with a general and universal tendency among elected officials, from here and elsewhere, to keep their cuts and bruises to themselves. Certainly out of humility, but even more so out of self-interest.

Would it have been in the public interest for Hillary Clinton to reveal on Friday that she was suffering from pneumonia, instead of waiting until she nearly passed out waiting for her SUV? Yes. But also, and maybe especially, in the interest of her health and her political interest.

“I hope she gets well soon,” Mr. Trump declared in an abnormally controlled tone. He didn’t have anything to recover from, since, for the past few weeks, he and a whole array of conservative media outlets have been working on spreading the very sexist notion that Mrs. Clinton simply isn’t strong enough to become the president of the most powerful country in the world.

Her pneumonia and the way that Americans found out about it gave some stock to the numerous rumors that have been plaguing her. The feeling that Mrs. Clinton still has something to hide has deep roots, even among Democrats. Furthermore, this distrust goes back a long way, to the Whitewater scandal that tarnished the Clintons’ reputation in the early ’90s.

Had they been a bit more transparent regarding this matter, this scandal probably would not have grown to such great proportions, observers have often said.

“Antibiotics can take care of pneumonia,” tweeted David Axelrod, Obama’s former chief strategist. “What’s the cure for an unhealthy penchant for privacy that repeatedly creates unnecessary problems?”

Mrs. Clinton’s bad reputation caught up with her with the story of the private email server she used while she was secretary of state. That said, she’s far from having a monopoly on this culture of secrecy — Donald Trump still refuses to make his tax returns public. In fact, both of them are the manifestation of an increasingly opaque and congested democracy. On another note, Newsweek happens to have just revealed that, like Mrs. Clinton, the Bush administration also used a private email server and that between 2003 and 2009, during the Iraq War, they disappeared 22 million emails, without regard for the law.

Despite all this, the fact remains that Mrs. Clinton still has the best chance to win, and that her chances should improve thanks to the figures published this Tuesday, which indicate an increase in household income for the first time since 2007. Won’t these new statistics work in her favor? If so, it will be a welcome salve for her recent rough spell.