Any recent heart attack is serious, but it’s even more alarming that Sanders’ campaign hasn’t released more details on his current health. Has his heart’s ejection fraction, a measure of its pumping efficiency, returned to normal, or is it permanently damaged?

If the damage is permanent, he cannot credibly claim to lead the nation with confidence. Any Sanders presidency must now be judged against the significant risk of him dying or suffering sudden physical incapacity while in office.

Regardless of Sanders’ political views (which are almost entirely all wrong), we cannot risk a president entering office who cannot handle the strains of the job.

Take aside the stresses already attached to occupancy of the Oval Office. The next president may face even tougher challenges than normal. There is a significant potential that the next president may lead the nation in a major war. Russia continues to threaten NATO’s eastern flank, China is seizing vast areas of the South China Sea, and North Korea is building missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads to every major American city.

Sanders has surely been expecting the media and voters to ask questions about his age and physical ability to lead the executive branch. Sanders is the oldest candidate running in 2020 and would be the oldest president ever on his first day in office, let alone the end of his first or second term.

Campaigning has clearly taken a toll on Sanders, and he’s struggling to keep up. He has since admitted he was “dumb” to ignore symptoms and push through fatigue on the campaign trail, and said he will have to “change the nature” of his campaign.

Would Bernie again ignore those symptoms as president?

Occupants of the Oval Office often get little sleep, with President Trump claiming to only sleep for about four hours a night. Former President Barack Obama often worked until two in the morning. As John Dickerson described it, the presidency is “an office in dire condition: overburdened, unrelenting in its demands, and unlike anything the Founders intended when they designed the role 230 years ago.”

We can’t have a commander-in-chief who could drop dead at any moment. It would leave our nation at the mercy of fate in a way that’s simply unacceptable. The uncertainty of our president’s health would be bad for the economy, foreign policy, and government stability (on top of all of Sanders’ other damaging policies).

Bernie may not have won the battle for the 2016 or 2020 Democratic nominations, but the good news is he’s clearly won the war for the ideology of the Democratic Party. Younger, healthier candidates with similar views, such as Elizabeth Warren, could easily take Sanders’ place.

Sanders has been unable to break out of third place in the Democratic primary polls anyway. The latest national polls suggest he trails Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren by at least 10 points. Why not drop out, endorse Warren, and help his ideological acolyte surge to the Democratic nomination?

Presidential campaigns are exhausting and demanding beyond belief. It is no moral failing of Sanders that at almost 80 years of age, he can’t handle it. Yet it would clearly be irresponsible for voters to elevate Sanders to the presidency, given his age and faltering health.