“Stable genius” Donald Trump has a history of creating insulting nicknames for his political rivals: Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Lyin’ Ted, Low Energy Jeb, and Lil’ Marco.
And now the Eye of SauDon has turned towards Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is emerging as the strongest potential rival for his precious: the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
Trump has already trotted out the nickname “Ron DeSanctimonious,” but that might just be too many syllables for the MAGA base to regurgitate.
And so The New York Times reports that Trump has been tossing around derogatory nicknames for DeSantis to see which might stick to the wall.
The Times:
He has insulted Mr. DeSantis in casual conversations, describing him as “Meatball Ron,” an apparent dig at his appearance, or “Shutdown Ron,” a reference to restrictions the governor put in place at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump also has a long history of insulting women based on their physical appearance, including the term “horseface” to describe Stormy Daniels. Currently, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is presenting evidence to a grand jury about whether Trump falsified records to hide hush money paid to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election.
One need only look at DeSantis’ head in the photo above to see what was on Trump’s mind. Of course, Trump’s image has launched a thousand unflattering nicknames in its own right.
And we all know Trump would never use what might be construed as an ethnic slur as a moniker for one of his rivals. Oh wait: DeSantis is Italian American. Trump is an equal opportunity offender when it comes to ethnic slurs.
Now, “Meathead” was already taken by Archie Bunker to refer to his liberal Polish American son-in-law Mike Stivic (played by real life liberal Rob Reiner) on All In the Family. And Meat Loaf, who opposed vaccine and mask mandates only to die of COVID-19 complications, did liven up the 2011 season of Celebrity Apprentice before getting fired.
Thankfully, we have Trump’s word for it that he’s not testing out “Meatball Ron,” or any other nickname for DeSantis—even as he uses one in his Truth Social denial.
“All of the Fake News is reporting that I spend large amounts of my time coming up with a good ‘nickname’ for Ron DeSanctimonious, who is obviously going to give the presidential ‘thing’ a shot. They are all 100% wrong, I don’t even think about it — A very unimportant subject to me!!!”
Super unimportant, clearly.
But important enough for Stephen Colbert to make “Meatball Ron” a running gag in his opening monologue Tuesday.
“Ooh I do not like how much I love that. It’s so dumb and accurate,” said Colbert, who then led his studio audience in singing “Meatball Ron” set to the tune of the Billy Joel song Uptown Girl. (beginning at the 6:00-minute mark).
At least for now, the Florida governor is demurring from joining Trump in the name-calling gutter, even as the disgraced Florida Man insinuated on social media that DeSantis behaved inappropriately with high school girls when he was a teacher at a private school in Georgia in his early 20s. “Groomin’ Ron,” anyone?
“I spend my time delivering results for the people of Florida and fighting against Joe Biden,” he said. “That’s how I spend my time. I don’t spend my time trying to smear other Republicans.”
But Fox News host Mark Levin did have time to spend calling out Trump’s name-calling, while admitting he happens to like meatballs. And he tweeted that if true it was “not a wise move” on Trump’s part because it “will turn off a lot of conservative voters.”
And that in turn drew responses in the Twitterverse with people wondering whether Levin had suffered some short-term memory loss regarding the 2016 presidential campaign.
The Daily Beast’s Matt Lewis recalls that Trump’s insulting nicknames did prove to be an effective political tool against his rivals in the 2016 Republican primary campaign.
One theory argued that our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter, and Trump understood how to succinctly capture the most negative framing of a person’s fundamental nature.
“Trump realizes campaigns, especially for president, aren’t about issues—they’re all about personalities, especially for independent voters,” Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist, told Roll Call. Evan Siegfried, a Republican strategist, concurred, saying, “The bottom line is: Trump’s nicknames stick.”
The 76-year-old Trump has largely shaped the GOP in his image, with an emphasis on performative politics and the airing of grievances.
DeSantis, 44, who owes his victory in the 2018 Florida Republican gubernatorial primary to Trump’s endorsement, has burnished his image as a more effective heir to Trump by using Florida as a petri dish for implementing fascistic authoritarian culture war policies.
But as The Daily Beast’s Lewis writes, Trump might be able to land some punches on DeSantis, who could turn out to have a glass jaw on the national level. And Lewis has an interesting suggestion as to where Trump might have gotten the inspiration for the “meatball” slur.
Lewis cites Rocky III, where Hulk Hogan’s pro wrestler character Thunderlips goes up against Sylvester Stallone’s Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion.
Before the fight, Hogan’s character, who later goes berserk and throws Rocky out of the ring, describes the billing as “The ultimate male versus the ultimate meatball.”
I thought about that this week when I heard that Donald Trump, who also postures himself as “the ultimate male,” described Ron DeSantis as “Meatball Ron.” Just as Stallone circled the ring, throwing perfunctory jabs before Hogan slammed him to the ground, we are now in the “circling the ring” stages of a heavyweight throwdown between Trump and DeSantis.
It’s about to get ugly.
Donald Trump was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2013.