Youngkin, on his way out the door, reinstating Presidential Fitness Test

Catching up on some news from earlier in the week, lame-duck MAGA Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order on Tuesday to reestablish the Presidential Fitness Test in the Commonwealth’s public school divisions, giving Abigail Spanberger another stupid thing from the Youngkin years to undo when she takes office in January.

“By reinstating the Presidential Fitness Test, we’re renewing a proud national tradition that honors the connection between physical wellness and civic readiness,” Youngkin said, trying to echo language from Donald Trump, who issued his own executive order earlier this year to reinstate the test.

For context: the Presidential Fitness Test dates back to the President Eisenhower in the 1950s, and was made formal in 1966 under LBJ.

The test – with its one-mile run, shuttle run, sit-ups, the rest – was replaced by a more comprehensive approach to youth fitness in 2013 under the second Barack Obama administration.

This is precisely why Trump, who famously avoids anything resembling exercise, wanted to revive the test.

If the Black guy didn’t like it, you know.

“Rates of obesity, chronic disease, inactivity, and poor nutrition are at crisis levels, particularly among our children,” Trump wrote in his EO.

Narrator: the guy who autopenned that sentence weighs in at three bills, has cankles and bruises on his hands from chronic disease and inactivity, because he eats a bucket of KFC for breakfast.

It’s performative readiness from the MAGAs – think: Pete Hegseth doing pushups, instead of modernizing the military.

The Obama approach focused on tracking kids’ year-to-year progress, but in the MAGA mindset, year-to-year progress is for pu**ies.

They fancy themselves modern-day warriors because they do pushups and have tattoos.

(For the record: I do pushups, six-mile runs and have tattoos, and I think these tests are bunk.)

We absolutely do need to do more to get kids off the couch, eating blocks of cheese, whatever it is kids eat these days – we know they’re not moving much more than their fingers on their cellphones.

This Presidential Fitness Test is not the way.