Opinion

The unbearable lightness of being Donald Trump

And yet, Trump’s age isn’t generating much alarm for voters or news organizations, in part because, unlike Biden, he comes off as surprisingly robust. Trump’s supporters might see this as affirmation of his superhuman strength — or even, after last month’s assassination attempt, of divine will. I see it as connected to whatever personality disorder he manifests.

Before we get to that, let me just stipulate that Trump is, objectively speaking, old — and there are moments when he really seems it. Maybe you’ve seen this YouTube video of him hitting the links with pro golfer Bryson DeChambeau. Trump spends much of the time wheezing through his words, his waxen face pulled tight; he reminds me of Christopher Walken in “Dune.”

But you know, he’s still golfing at 78 — and pretty well at that. And Trump still managed to give a convention speech last month, largely extemporaneously, that ended up being more like a filibuster. Sure, he ranted and meandered like a guy you might cross the street to avoid if you saw him downtown after dark, but there’s nothing new about that.

There’s no escaping the fact that Trump still seems a good deal younger than Biden. He appears to be nourished by a bottomless wellspring of rage.

What makes this so remarkable is that Trump has already been president, a job known to sharply accelerate the aging process. It’s possible we overstate this phenomenon; just because we all saw President Barack Obama’s hair turn white, for instance, doesn’t mean it would have been any less white had he been, say, an insurance broker. If I showed you a picture of me from eight years ago, I’m pretty sure you’d think that writing columns exacts its own horrible price.

But I think it’s fair to say that the strain of the presidency shows itself in pretty much everyone who leaves the office — in worry lines in the face, gauntness from lack of sleep, creaking backs and failing knees.

Ronald Reagan, who was about Trump’s age when he left office, hurtled into Alzheimer’s disease. Lyndon B. Johnson died a frail man at 64, just four years after leaving the White House. Bill Clinton, who was only 52 when he completed his second term, developed a serious heart condition soon after.

Watch any video of Biden four years ago, and you’ll have the odd sensation of having turned back the clock by a decade at least. It was the visual effects of Biden’s aging, rather than evidence of any cognitive decline, that doomed his candidacy from the moment he appeared on the debate stage in June.

Why does the presidency have this effect? It’s not the late nights and endless flights (although that probably doesn’t help). It’s the physical burden of awesome responsibility. Every decision seems to involve bad options and worse; some cost livelihoods, others actual lives. Add to this the toll it all takes on a family (in Biden’s case, the very public prosecution of his only surviving son), and you can see why a normal person isn’t built to withstand it.

But this is where Trump is truly not normal. I’m trying not to be cruel here, but it’s not exactly breaking new ground to say that he seems to lack for something innately human — the basic capacity to internalize other people’s pain. As president, Trump never betrayed remorse or apologized, never seemed to take personally the 800,000 Americans who died from the coronavirus on his watch. Tragedy breeds in him only defiance. Trump’s motto might be: “Don’t worry, be angry.”

When Trump and his children talk about the sacrifices their family made to serve the public, they aren’t talking about his anguished nights spent roaming the halls of the White House. They’re talking about money.

The point is that empathy and self-doubt — the feeling that we’re failing to meet the critical needs of others — are the things that really take a toll on us. Whereas clinical callousness may well be a fountain of youth — from which Trump’s been guzzling his entire life.

I don’t know about you, but I’d take a president stooped and shuffling under the weight of his burdens over one who seems not to feel them at all, any day of the week.

It’s true that Trump seems remarkably fit for a man his age. But what’s broken can’t be fixed.