The soap opera that is the US current election campaign continues. Now we know that luckily Hillary Clinton is recovering well from a mild bout of pneumonia. Trump, on the other hand, has normal blood sugar levels and like most people in the US is borderline obese. So who is the more fit to govern the US in the next four years?

For a whole week, TV stations roped in medical experts to express their opinion on how the medical conditions of the two candidates affected their ability to take the right decisions for their country. Opinion polls swung against Hillary Clinton as the more fickle voters listened to the medical gurus and opinionated journalists. When these things happen it is time to ignore phoney political communication. This is just one of the things that is making many reasonable people immune to the theatrics that is modern politics.

It will be interesting if the health issues that may affect politicians are discussed in a more meaningful way. Rather than measuring a politician’s blood pressure levels and comparing them to that of their adversaries, journalists should submit politicians to the lie detector test – not necessarily the physical one, but the one where what politicians say when in opposition is congruent with what they do when in government. For me this is what really matters and helps me decide who to trust with my vote.

Another important medical that I would be interested to know more about is a psychometric test that would reveal the character traits of people who ask the electorate to trust them with their vote. It is a well-known fact that many politicians have warped personality disorders. I recently read that politicians, like top business leaders, are more prone to suffer from narcissistic personality disorder and Machiavellism. Put simply, for me such personality flaws are more important than whether a political party leader suffers a bout of pneumonia.

Many inspirational politicians – like most human beings – suffer from some medical disorder. Winston Churchill was bipolar and yet he led his country with magnificent leadership skills while he struggled with occasional severe depression. I also remember a more recent case of a Norwegian prime minister who took time off from work because he was suffering from burn-out, a respectable term for severe clinical anxiety.

But the most shining example of how a leader’s physical health is only marginally important for ordinary people is that of Pope Francis who has often admitted that he suffers from poor health, having lived most of his life with only one functioning lung. The recently canonised Mother Teresa was a frail old lady but had worshipping audiences made up of those who value hard sensible talk rather than political rhetoric and eloquence that has become the substance of today’s political communication.

Many politicians have warped personality disorders

Today’s politicians generally no longer subscribe to the traditional political ideologies of Christian democracy or social democracy. This is not necessarily a bad thing. What matters is making peoples’ lives better without politicians making themselves super rich in the process.

Sustainable economic development is the only acceptable way for making peoples’ lives better. Exploiting a country’s environment, engaging in shady economic activities and promoting short-term gain at the cost of long-term viability is certainly not sustainable. Many crimes against the world environment have been perpetrated in the past centuries in all continents by politicians confessing allegiance to political creeds of the right and the left.

Political democracy is still the most effective system to ensure good governance. But today the power of the media has turned political communication into a perverse science where untruths, half-truths and outright lies are presented as facts to an often gullible audience that believes whatever is printed or said on TV. Of course, this is a generalisation that hides part of the reality that we are living. Luckily in every society there are sporadic voices of conscience that spell out the truth surrounding the often false but mellifluous political communication.

So what really interests me in the US political campaign and what comes after it is whether the world’s greatest democracy will revert to protectionism, racial hatred, discrimination against desperate immigrants and reverential submission to powerful business lobbies rather than promote sustainable economic growth, however hard this latter strategy is to implement.

While I wish that all political leaders enjoyed good physical and mental health, what matters to me is whether they will do what is right for their country.

johncassarwhite@yahoo.com