Brendan Boyle, the 40-year-old whippersnapper representing Pennsylvania in the US House, has decided to introduce a piece of legislation, the S.T.A.B.L.E. G.E.N.I.U.S. Act, which would require serious presidential candidates to be evaluated by physicians before presidential elections. The legislation would also require candidates’ medical data to be made public so voters could take candidates’ health into consideration before voting.

This legislation is very clearly a jab at Trump. Boyle named the bill the “Stable Genius Act,” referencing tweets made by Trump this weekend in which Trump refers to himself as a “very stable genius:”

….Actually, throughout my life, my two greatest assets have been mental stability and being, like, really smart. Crooked Hillary Clinton also played these cards very hard and, as everyone knows, went down in flames. I went from VERY successful businessman, to top T.V. Star…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

….to President of the United States (on my first try). I think that would qualify as not smart, but genius….and a very stable genius at that!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 6, 2018

Boyle wants Americans to be equipped with medical knowledge enabling them to vote against any future “stable geniuses.” Here, Boyle explains what his legislative acronym “STABLE GENIUS” stands for:

The President believes he is a "stable genius." I do not. Today, I introduced the

Standardizing
Testing and
Accountability
Before
Large
Elections

Giving
Electors
Necessary
Information for
Unobstructed
Selection

Act to ensure that Presidential candidates are fit to lead. pic.twitter.com/ZalCqySlo8

— Rep. Brendan Boyle (@CongBoyle) January 9, 2018

I enjoy ridiculously long and forced acronyms as much as the next person, but I call BS on Boyle saying that he believes Trump is unstable.

Now, is Trump narcissistic? Yes. Does he make one outlandish, self-aggrandizing statement after the other? Again, yes. Does he pick petty (but extremely entertaining) fights with other major figures in politics and the media? Yes… and the nation eats it up.

None of that means Trump is mentally unstable. It just means that he thinks really, really highly of himself.

Whether his lofty self-perceptions are accurate or not is neither here nor there. The fact is, his lofty self-perceptions are no big deal because the act of thinking too highly of oneself is ubiquitous in national politics. The vast majority of politicians on both sides of the aisle think way too highly of themselves.

Look at any Twitter profile of any politician at the federal level. What you’ll find is basically nonstop tweeting about how awesome they think they are, how awesome they think their political ideals are, and them gushing over awesome things they’ve done or are going to do.

That’s what happens when people find themselves in seats of power. That’s what happens when people have to continually talk themselves up to the public because they are always worried about losing reelection to those seats of power.

But the thing is, most politicians self-aggrandize in much subtler ways than Trump.

Here’s what makes Trump different: 1) he’s not at all subtle when he expresses his lofty self-perceptions and 2) he’s willing to challenge the nation’s expectations of his presidential mannerisms. Because of these two things, he exudes a shockingly strong sense of confidence that emboldens half the country. And this sense of confidence terrifies the other half of the country– not necessarily because they believe he’s so unstable he’ll launch a nuke at North Korea, but because they know Trump is a juggernaut of personality. He’s a formidable opponent and they’re scared of him.

I seriously doubt Boyle’s legislation is the fruit of him being afraid that Trump is unstable or medically unfit. The much more likely scenario is that Boyle, like every other Trump hater, is interested in undermining the POTUS. Also, of course, Boyle might be angling for political capital and a place in the national spotlight. Perhaps he has higher aspirations than the US House of Representatives.

It’s weird, really. Trump is unprecedentedly despised in Washington, and yet, so many anti-Trump politicians and pundits have no problem using him to get a leg up either in terms of making money or making strides politically or socially. I’d imagine that Boyle falls in there somewhere.

Besides, if Boyle really did care about the medical well-being of presidential candidates, where in the heck was he during election season 2016 and even before that, when Hillary was having frequent and concerning medical episodes?

There was the time she collapsed on the way to her van at the September 11 memorial service and her handlers had to swarm her to keep her from faceplanting:

There was the time when she coughed huge chunks of mucus into her water at a campaign rally:

Bunny owls are the best

There was this time when she fell getting onto her plane:

And this time when she couldn’t walk up the stairs without people helping her:

Clinton was obviously not physically well during the 2016 political season. Now, I have no problem at all with the idea of an infirm president, as long as they are mentally fit to lead. But many of her physical ailments were accompanied by very odd behaviors. When she collapsed in NYC on 9/11/16, she was whisked to Chelsea’s apartment in the city and remained there for hours until she came out and then she pretended like the whole thing was no big deal… she just got overheated. Sounds totally legit. And she drank mucus water on stage, hoping none of us would notice. At 68, she was incapable of using stairs alone. She lied compulsively about important issues to make herself look good (which is… drumroll… a sign of narcissism). She kept a freaking personal server with sensitive government information on it in lockdown in her house like it was a digital Fort Knox. That alone screams that she was paranoid and needed to feel powerful.

That’s some seriously sketchy behavior. A lot of republicans were understandably concerned about Hillary’s health during the 2016 campaign season. I, for one, was dumbfounded at how much Hillary wanted to be president then. To me, she was clearly unwell, but it didn’t matter to her… she’d made up her mind to be president come hell or high water. It was almost impressive.

But there was nary a peep from liberals. Not a peep from Brendan Boyle. No one with a “D” by their name acknowledged in any serious way that there might have been something wrong with Hillary.

But now that it’s politically convenient to make a big deal out of Trump’s eccentricities (and characterize them as evidence of mental illness), we’re hearing lots of peeps.

Peep away, haters.

Or, if you’re not a hater, please enjoy this video: