# Trump’s health is an existential threat
Date: 2025-09-10

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### Trump’s health is an existential threat

Let’s review what happens to autocrats as they age poorly.

> In 1966, Mao Zedong’s health was the subject of intense rumor and speculation, particularly after he spent many months out of public view. To dispel these rumors and reassert his authority at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Mao staged a highly publicized swim in the Yangtze River.

> Estimates for deaths caused by China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) vary, but most sources place the figure between 1 million and 2 million people, with some experts like Stanford sociologist [Andrew Walder](https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=dad87895c19efbc5&cs=0&sxsrf=AE3TifOOOaNhAeEeARQiu75ZsDffah47ug%3A1757531901256&q=Andrew+Walder&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiNuurE9M6PAxVPz_ACHbkWDXgQxccNegQIAhAB&mstk=AUtExfCn4Ax-7Bd-FY00PLzDvQTcfl_Q8M-vLKkD1BU-iCFigPAsGd5L3Ls3GflcWqmRR4RCnZMGzR5GvbsNnYvdM37Fc7PX56ltpOm9dsHzwyaQnxPg-gqPJRHrmZP6dQA9IUzYXW-vtb2qOCKl8Zxxp_C8imoHBfEo7mtEA_xtpeHQg2qNTkayBX5gAqkQ3NixRdhcoqlaVUKdL2NpzGtH7hBxHcWiPVqrCiNE3SzY4Gsjnwz5hGfaj1XDiDngp9t-nbDZsLr7kI2tCgHUo1pHATPRwO7KZfjnQH7SSwK1lRJaV4lM0UBs2WqS_08dIK1MPiEGa2dzQdNjeeFrM1Z7p3cmIK2Muudvdo458LauXKx4ty2-Of6Z3SiMaw31JfuDwOC5rcWIJu_9uE5WNhwoZaS1dukoayQMUUDmtNsMOeI&csui=3) suggesting 1.6 million or more. The violence and persecution during this period targeted political opponents and “reactionary elements” to reassert Mao Zedong’s authority and purge society of capitalist and traditional ideas.

The Doctor’s plot started two years before Stalin’s death:

[**Doctors' plot - Wikipedia**  
*The " doctors' plot" (Russian: дело врачей, romanized: delo vrachey, 'doctors' case') was a Soviet state-sponsored…*en.wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctors%27_plot")

Some theories believe that had Stalin not died when he did there could have been a genocide or at a minimum mass deportations to Siberia.

In Spain Francisco Franco’s Parkinson’s disease led to his increasing reliance on Luis Carrero Blanco. Franco appointed Blanco prime minister but Blanco was assassinated six months after the appointment.

Blanco was a rabid antiSemite and wanted a continuity of Francoism that died with him. As with Stalin and the Doctor’s plot, things could have gone much worse.

Even without the pressures of extreme old age, President George W. Bush started a fallacious war that caused around [half a million deaths](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War). Electing a president with no moral compass was already a tremendous threat. Electing a president without morals who is also dying is so much worse.

Nor is simple body count the only threat from a poorly aging dictator. Henry VIII crippled the moral fiber of his country and started a church that led to centuries of religious infighting in order to repeatedly execute wives that didn’t produce a male heir.

Peter “the Great” [tortured and killed his own son](https://www.history.com/articles/peter-the-great-tortured-killed-own-son). Caligula is thought to have turned maniacal after barely surviving an illness.

![Louis XIV who spent most of the last years of his life embroiled in a European war and is said to have said on his deathbed, “I have loved war too well.”](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/assets/trump-s-health-is-an-existential-threat-4506400d39.jpg)
*Louis XIV who spent most of the last years of his life embroiled in a European war and is said to have said on his deathbed, “I have loved war too well.”*

In order to protect his legacy of cruelty, Trump already signed a bill that will kill tens of thousands of Americans starting after elections in the fall. His equivalent of Cultural Revolution, purging “woke”, is so far much less violent than the original.

However the push back on the “woke” purge has already begun and there is a real threat that a poorly aging Trump will lash out as he confronts his own mortality.