Washington: Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday and it has become a presidential campaign issue. Hillary collapsed at a 9/11 memorial service and doctors said that heat exhaustion and dehydration was the cause of her problem. After some rest, she emerged steady and said she felt great.
Her rival Donald Trump told a TV programme he hoped “she gets well and gets back on the trail,” but there was no mistaking the sense of vindication in his camp over #HillarysHealth, as the Twitter hashtag put it. Trump and his flock have long claimed she is not in good health. “I really just don't know. I hope she gets well soon. I don't know what's going on,” he said. He also brought up her coughing fit last week: “I assume that was pneumonia also. I'd think it would have been. So something's going on.”
Some three million people in the US contract pneumonia every year. But Hillary's illness will likely attract more attention than the rest put together. Her supporters argued that part of the reason for the uproar is the underlying gender dynamics that stereotyped women as being “weak.” If a man had a bout of pneumonia, they argued, it would be no big deal.
Indeed, the Hillary camp fought back, arguing that the fact she showed up at the 9/11 memorial service two days after the diagnosis and a day after several campaign appearances, TV interviews, and a long national security meeting with her advisers showed she is a strong woman. “Hillary has pneumonia. There's a cure for that. Trump supporters are racist deplorable inbreds. There's no cure for that,” read one waspish tweet from a Clinton supporter, as the hashtag #HillarysHealth began to trend.
But Trump diehards struck back, asking why if she was diagnosed with pneumonia on Friday , did her campaign initially attribute it to heat, pointing out that temperatures in NYC on Sunday were around 27 degrees Celsius.
Another supporter said that for someone who had pneumonia, Hillary should not have hugged a young girl, as revealed on TV footage when she emerged from her daughter's apartment building. Conspiracy theorists spun dark takes about why she was taken to her daughter's apartment instead of a hospital.
Wearing Hillary Clinton's description of them as “deplorables” like a badge of honour, many right-wing conservatives had a field day online, spinning various medical theories for her buckling. “Aspiration Pneumonia” is leading cause of death in people with Parkinson's disease, claimed “Deplorable Dr Hart,” while a religious Trump supporter warned, “When you openly stand against God, He shall stand against you.”
Some tabloids went so far as to speculate that the Democratic Party is “considering replacement” for Clinton, but party honchos merely issued a statement wishing her a quick recovery.
