FDR (with help from the willing press) hid his polio-related paralysis and other health conditions from the public because he didn't want to appear weak. JFK (with help from the willing press) hid his health issues from the public because he didn't want to appear weak. Today's Democrat presidential hopefuls want the public to know they're all hurt little children inside because literally everything is stupid.
Go on and accuse me of indulging in hyperbole — and I'll grant you that not literally everything is stupid — but your 2028 Democrats really are engaged in a contest to present themselves to the public as the most damaged.
Here's Sunday's cringe headline from Axios: "Dems eyeing White House lean into their childhood traumas."
"Their frankness about their formative years and family dynamics is a way to shape their public stories before journalists do," Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein wrote. "It's also a sign of shifting taboos and a growing desire for candidates to appear relatable to voters."
Let's go first to California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose new campaign-launching memoir, Young Man in a Hurry, goes into stark detail about his troubled childhood — including that time his mother cautioned him against wearing those shoes with his favorite Burberry scarf.
OK, I made that up. Mostly. He did, however, wear a Burberry scarf to school.
My point about Newsom is this: His parental issues don't seem to be much worse than any other child of divorce, yet he still felt the need to lean hard into that stuff. If you aren't damaged goods, Dems just don't want you. AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF. Sweet Jeebus, we're in trouble.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro wrote in his recent memoir that his mother could be "unstable," and that he and his siblings believed that "if we were good, we could stop the chaos and the yelling."
"I had to anticipate a problem or a pain point before there was a blowup," he wrote.
If you're looking for a president who will do or say whatever it takes to make crazy people leave him alone for a few minutes, Shapiro is your man guy. Democrats have a yuge problem with their base of crazy white women, and Shapiro basically says right up front that he'll coddle them.
Shapiro needn't have bothered debasing himself before the Gods of Cringe, because his Jewishness is an automatic disqualifier among tolerant and broad-minded Democrat primary voters.
The Axios report also looked at Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who in second grade once got sent to bed without dinner for swallowing a classmate whole.
Again, sorry, I made that up.
Axios did, however, say that while Pritzker hasn't yet written a memoir, he has "spoken openly about losing his father, Donald, to a heart attack when he was 7 and his mother to alcoholism when he was 17."
Pretty tragic stuff, honestly — and sadly, stuff I can relate to. And yet if Pritzker learned anything from either of his parents' early deaths, it certainly isn't reflected in how he takes care of his own health. Well past merely "morbidly obese," Pritzker didn't get serious about weight loss until 2025, when his presidential ambitions forced him to:
For the first time, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is opening up about his morning routine and weight loss journey, as others -- including President Donald Trump -- take notice that the governor is prioritizing his health more.
The journey comes amid increasing speculation that Pritzker is gearing up for a White House run in 2028.
On the GOP side, I don't know whether it's childhood demons or just good sense that drive War Secretary Pete Hegseth and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr to such extremes of good health. That's because they're too busy setting good examples to bore us with their damaged inner children or whatever.
In a 1960s interview, John Wayne said, “Ten or 15 years ago audiences went to pictures to see men behaving like men… today there are too many neurotic roles.”
Now that's how Democrats audition for the role of The Most Powerful Man in the World.
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