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One of former US President Donald Trump’s best-known and most effective political and media gimmicks are nicknames. Trump often gives very effective nicknames to his political opponents, who in some cases are so successful that they remain in the US public discourse and not only, going so far as, in the worst circumstances, to damage the political careers of the people targeted.
Since Trump announced his candidacy in the Republican Party primaries for the 2024 presidential elections last fall, talk has immediately begun about the nicknames he will give to his opponents. And since his candidacy came exceptionally early (Trump was the first Republican to run, and the primaries are practically a year away) the former president is taking advantage of the time available to spread his speeches and posts about social media different nicknames for each opponent, to understand the most effective one and which has the most appeal among the electorate. Trump, for now, is focusing his attention on Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who is by far his most formidable opponent.
Donald Trump’s nicknames began to become famous with the start of his political career, in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries, which Trump then won. Trump gave nicknames to all of his opponents in the Republican primaries, and some of these would stick with the people he targeted. Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio became “Lyin’ Ted”, and “Little Marco”. Jeb Bush, who at the beginning of the primaries was considered the favorite, became “Low Energy Jeb”.
Trump’s nicknames are often insulting and childish, and in some cases can be considered a form of humiliation and bullying (although both Cruz and Rubio have since become Trump’s allies and staunch defenders). Some focus on a physical trait, such as “Little Marco”, while others focus on a personality trait, such as “Low Energy Jeb”: this last nickname, in particular, would remain attached to Jeb Bush throughout the primaries, and would play a major role in the perception that the Republican electorate had of him.
Some nicknames contain accusations within them, such as “Crooked Hillary” attributed to Hillary Clinton, her Democratic presidential opponent in 2016 (“crooked” means corrupt, dishonest). Others are racist or sexist: Trump called Elizabeth Warren, a candidate in the 2020 Democratic primaries, “Pocahontas” to make fun of her distant Native American heritage. Amy Klobuchar, another candidate in the 2020 Democratic primaries, was defined as “Snowman(woman)”: in this way Trump wanted both to indicate her coldness (“snowman” means snowman) and to question her sexuality.
Over the course of his short political career, Trump has given dozens of nicknames, so many that there is even a Wikipedia page dedicated to keeping track of them.
A rather remarkable issue, among other things, is that Trump attributes to his most formidable opponents numerous nicknames, which he varies and rotates in his speeches and in his posts on social networks, probing which of these is most successful and most harmful to the his victim. For example, the nickname that Trump gave to the current president Joe Biden, his opponent in the 2020 presidential elections, is “Sleepy Joe”. But before deciding that “Sleepy Joe” was the most effective, Trump tested a dozen nicknames on Biden, including “Slow Joe”, “SleepyCreepy Joe”, “Corrupt Joe”, “Beijing Biden”, “Crazy Joe Biden ” and so on.
The primaries are about a year away, and many of the most promising Republican politicians have not yet announced their candidacy. But the American media are already watching – with rather ill-concealed satisfaction – who Donald Trump will give new nicknames to. When former US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley announced her candidacy last month, Trump did not attribute any adjectives to her: this it was seen as a sign that he thinks Haley is not to be feared.
On the contrary, the American media maintain that Trump is working quite intensely on the nickname to be given to Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida who at the moment seems to be the only one able to beat Trump and get the Republican nomination. DeSantis has not formally run for now, but it is very likely that he will in the coming months.
The two would be very close allies, but when Trump spoke of “Ron DeSanctimonious” (“sanctimonious” means hypocrite) a couple of months ago, it became clear that he now sees an adversary in DeSantis. According to New York TimesTrump recently “spent weeks trying to lure DeSantis into a fight provoking him with rude nicknames come “Ron DeSanctimonious”».
Always according to the New York Times and other publications such as Bloomberg, Trump and his team would be very focused on DeSantis and would be testing numerous nicknames for him. Trump mainly writes about it on his social network Truth, which he has been using since he was kicked out of Twitter (he was later readmitted, but hasn’t resumed using it).
Among the more notable nicknames there would be “Ron DeEstablishment”, “Ron DisHonest”, “Shutdown Ron” (referring to the “shutdown” policies adopted by DeSantis in the early stages of the pandemic). There has even been talk of “Tiny D,” a nickname that would attack the fact that DeSantis often wears relatively high-heeled shoes, but that would also be a possible sexual insult (“tiny” means tiny, tiny, and the D can be either a reference to the initial of DeSantis is a not so veiled reference to one of the English words for penis, namely “dick”).
One of the more ridiculous and insulting nicknames – “Meatball Ron”, which means “Ron Meatball” and is a reference both to his Italian American origins and to the fact that DeSantis often appears swollen and flushed – Trump slyly used it in a denial, that is, in a post on Truth in which he said he would never call DeSantis “Ron Meatballs.”
For Trump, nicknames are very useful both because when they work they help influence the judgment of the electorate and because they force the victim to respond and enter a battle of childish insults in which Trump is very often at ease. Also, as is quite evident, they attract media attention.
Indeed there is who believes that Trump has readapted the habit of using nicknames precisely from the American media, which have made extensive use of them in the past, especially in the popular and tabloid press. Harry Truman, president from 1945 to 1953, was called by the media “High Tax Harry” (“Harry Tasse Alte”) or “Little Harry”. Richard Nixon, president between 1969 and 1974, was called “Tricky Dick” (“tricky” means tricky, and Dick is also short for Richard).