Life Expectancy

 Paul Campos gives us an update on Trump's actuarial odds. Basically, as a rich guy with long-lived parents, Trump can expect many more years. Of course, actuarial tables are just statistical approximations of predictions. Trump certainly doesn't look or sound healthy. Being president is the most stressful job on earth. One commentator said that while it's stressful, Trump doesn't actually DO the job. I don't think that's quite right. Trump doesn't engage with policy or it's effects - his diesel export ban is just pure Trumpist stupidity - but the stress of the job is the demands it put on you that cannot anticipate. In fact, all his little building projects are just a way for him to manage the stress; his ballroom is just an act of self-soothing. That doesn't mean it will work to reduce his stress/

The other stark reality is that Trump is in obvious cognitive decline from a pretty low pre-existing baseline. That does not mean he's about to die. There is certainly a likely future of Trump having the sort of health incident that an 80 year old man who eats fast food, is morbidly obese, who gobbles aspirin like they're candy and does have a stressful job where he suffers accumulating narcissistic wounds would be expected to have. A post-stroke or heart attack Trump should be removed via the 25th Amendment, but that would requite a GOP Congress that isn't in the thrall of the man.

When Woodrow Wilson had his stroke, his wife and staff basically took over the running of the government for weeks. I am not confident in the nest of snakes in the Executive Branch pulling off something similar. Instead, I think we might be in for something akin to the morbid puppetry of Mitch McConnell's "return" to the Senate.