Over the closing stretch of the midterm campaign, President Donald Trump, who is 80, launched a 32-day blitz and at one point was scheduled for rallies in seven states in seven days. Whatever one thinks of what he says on those stages, the schedule itself is a data point. It sits awkwardly beside a story many Americans have been told for a decade: that he is mentally unbalanced, and lately that he is too frail to last.
Let me say plainly what this essay is not. It is not an endorsement of Trump, his policies or his politics, and readers who oppose him will find no argument here asking them to stop. My quarrel is with a habit of mind: deciding what we wish were true about a person we dislike, then announcing it as fact. Whether it is done for political gain or simply because it feels good, it is poor science and poor ethics, and it would be just as wrong aimed at anyone else.
