OPINION:
Reports of President Trump’s death, just as Mark Twain mused 127 years ago about his own prematurely reported demise, were greatly exaggerated.
The cause of the hubbub, which exploded on social media last week: Mr. Trump remained out of the spotlight (no press conferences, impromptu Q&As or photo ops) for a couple of days. He turned up over the holiday weekend, heading to the golf course with grandchildren, which he also did the following day.
“I didn’t do anything for two days, and they said, ‘There must be something wrong with him,’” Mr. Trump told reporters Tuesday. “I was very active over the weekend. I went out to visit some people at the club that I own pretty nearby on the Potomac River. No — I’ve been very active, actually.”
What is most interesting about the interlude is the absolute glee among Democrats and liberals. Call it TDS (Trump death syndrome). While Republicans often speculated on President Biden’s mental acuity — he was, after all, running the most powerful country in the world, and he could hardly utter a coherent sentence — none openly wished for his death.
Like a phantom limb that aches long after amputation, Democrats are experiencing political pain from a presidency they keep insisting is already over. The recent “Trump is dead” social media frenzy wasn’t just wishful thinking; it was a full-blown celebration, complete with artificial-intelligence-generated caskets and virtual headstones.
Here’s where the metaphor gets deliciously twisted: While Democrats are busy planning Mr. Trump’s political funeral, they’re the ones flatlining.
Democrats lost more than 2 million registered voters from the 2020 to 2024 presidential elections, while Republicans gained 2.4 million, The New York Times reported. What’s more, a recent CNBC survey shows the Democratic Party’s net favorability has plummeted by -32 percentage points among registered voters. The party now holds just a 24% positive rating and a 56% negative rating, “the lowest rating for either party going back to at least 1996.” According to Gallup, 76% of Republicans are satisfied with the country’s direction, versus less than 1% of Democrats.
Meanwhile, the party’s financial situation mirrors its other serious troubles. After its devastating 2024 elections, the Democratic National Committee trails the Republican National Committee by nearly every fundraising metric. By June’s end, the RNC held $80 million; the Democrats, just $15 million.
Hence the death wish for Mr. Trump. Some went over the top, like Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who got crushed along with former Vice President Kamala Harris in November, in openly wishing for the commander in chief’s demise.
“Look, I get it,” he told a group of supporters at a festival Monday. “You get up in the morning and you doom scroll through things. And although I will say this, the last few days, you woke up thinking there might be news. Just saying, just saying. There will be news sometime. Just so you know, there will be news.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, who is clearly planning a run for the White House in 2028, demanded “proof of life” from Mr. Trump, but the request would have been far more apt for the Democratic Party itself.
Democrats have long hoped for Mr. Trump’s death. Last September, after an armed assassin was arrested near where Mr. Trump was golfing, 28% said America would “be better off” if the president had been killed, Rasmussen’s Napolitan News Institute found. Another 25% said they were “not sure.”
The madness has been going on for a while. When images of Mr. Trump’s swollen ankles surfaced in July, Democrats didn’t see a medical condition; they saw an obituary waiting to happen. The conspiracy theory got so far afield that a British newspaper quoted someone named Dr. Mimmie Kwong, an expert in vascular surgery, saying Mr. Trump might need to have his leg amputated.
The beautiful irony is that Democrats keep trying to amputate Trump from American politics, but the patient (democracy) keeps rejecting the surgery. Like a skilled surgeon who refuses to remove a healthy limb, voters keep reattaching what Democrats desperately want to cut off.
The real medical emergency isn’t Mr. Trump’s ankles; it’s the Democratic Party’s complete circulatory failure. While they’re busy checking for Mr. Trump’s pulse, their own political arteries are completely blocked. CBS News can edit all the interviews it wants, but it can’t edit reality: The patient they keep declaring dead is doing jumping jacks while they’re on life support.
Perhaps it’s time for Democrats to stop playing doctor with other people’s mortality and start performing some emergency surgery on their own political body. After all, the only thing more embarrassing than celebrating someone’s fake death is doing it while you’re actually dying yourself.
• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.