Politicians Dealing with Mental Health Issues

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

John Fetterman, who was elected as the junior US senator from the state of Pennsylvania just this past November - and who suffered a major stroke during the campaign - was again admitted to the hospital last week with an undiagnosed ailment, and this week he has admitted himself to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside of Washington DC where he declared that he is suffering from clinical depression and is seeking treatment.   Fetterman’s staff have indicated that the senator will be receiving in-patient treatment for the next several weeks at the hospital.  They are expecting a full recovery.
 
Politicians from both political parties are speaking favorably about the Democratic senator’s honesty and openness in dealing publicly with his serious mental health issue.  An exception to that general rule was voiced by Donald Trump, Jr., who referred to Fetterman as “the vegetable senator“ on his podcast, but even young Trump managed to say before the show was over that he wished Senator Fetterman well.

(I'm sorry for feeling the need to point this out, but Junior Trump criticizing anyone's mental health status other than his own, is irony well beyond measure!)
 
Senator Fetterman's announcement that he is dealing with mental health issues was not only well received by fellow politicians of both major parties, it also seems to be resonating favorably with the American public in general.
 
After Fetterman’s announcement this week, there have been stories in the press about a couple of other politicians who shared their own mental health diagnoses with the public.  Two of the most talked about were prominent Missouri Democrats.  Hearing their stories serves as a good gauge of how the public response to politicians with mental health issues has changed over the years.
 
US Senator Thomas F. Eagleton of Missouri was nominated to be George McGovern's running mate on the Democratic presidential ticket in 1972.  A couple of weeks after that nomination was made and Eagleton had been approved by the Democratic National Convention as their vice-presidential nominee, one of the young senator’s previous political opponents released a story to the press which stated that Eagleton had undergone mental health treatment as well as electric shock treatment for depression and exhaustion.   Those incidents, which were true, had occurred several years before Eagleton's name went on the national ballot.
 
When the news of Eagleton's past mental health history and treatment became public knowledge, George McGovern went before the press to state that he was standing by his running mate and that he supported him 1,000 percent.  Press coverage of the story was unrelenting and McGovern soon changed his mind and asked Eagleton to remove himself from the ticket.  He was replaced on the ballot by R. Sargent Shriver, a Kennedy in-law who had been the founder of the Peace Corps. 
 
While some national politicians and journalists had trouble accepting a politician who admitted to having received mental health treatment, that was not the case with Missouri voters who went on to send Thomas F. Eagleton back to the United States Senate for two additional six-year terms.
 
Jason Kander, a Democrat, had already served a term as Missouri's Secretary of State when he decided to run against incumbent US Senator Roy Blunt, a Republican, in 2016.  Kander gave Senator Blunt the scare of his political life when he came within a three points of defeating Blunt in the general election that year - at the same time when Republican Donald Trump was walloping Democrat Hillary Clinton in the same state by 18 1/2 percentage points.
 
Two years later in October of 2018 Jason Kander was a candidate for mayor of Kansas City, Missouri, and he was leading in the polls with less than a month remaining before the election when he suddenly withdrew.  Kander, who had been an intelligence officer with the United States Army for eight years and had served multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan, made the following surprise announcement over Twitter:
 

“I suffer from depression and have PTSD symptoms.   After 11 years I'm finally ready to do something about it.”

After a prolonged period of treatment, Jason Kander has not returned to politics, and instead he works nationally with programs for homeless veterans - and he also tours talking about his mental health issues and the road to recovery.
 
Of the three Democratic politicians discussed in this blog posting, Thomas Eagleton of Missouri received the most push back regarding his issues and treatment, but even Eagleton held up well with voters in his home state.    And the two more recent instances, Kander and Fetterman, both seem to have inspired public confidence with their openness and honesty.  
 
The times, it would seem, are changing for the better.  I think we can all be proud of that, and we can definitely be proud that people are stepping forward to face their demons.  When that happens, society benefits - and the world is a safer and more nurturing place.