Seems like every single person has their own derisive nickname for Trump when posting something snarky on the internet which you can immediately think of multiple right off the bat, “Orange Man”, Drumpf" “The Cheeto” and others. Similarly Obama also got a ton of derisive nicknames online, “Appeaser-in-Chief”, “B.O.”, “Obunghole” and others. Some of these wound up carrying over to Trump, like “pResident” and “The Lyin’ King”
However I can’t think of any real big derisive nicknames for George W Bush. There was * (Asterisk popularized by Doonesbury) and Shrub (which seemingly was the one people tried to use hard to lampoon Bush) Even if there were some there were nowhere near as many as Obama or Trump.
I know people in the past have used derisive nicknames for Presidents but did any of them have anywhere near as many as the last two Presidents?
Derisive nicknames, sure they’ve always been around, and some are clever. But things like “Obunghole” and “Moochelle” and the corresponding variations on Trump are a function of the internet enabling unfettered vox populi thereby revealing how deeply stupid and juvenile a lot of people are.
Politics in the 19th century makes today’s mudslinging seem like a tea party. Every president (except for George Washington) had his detractors, and name-calling was omnipresent. A handful are still remembered now, but there are dozens that never made the history books.
One definite difference is fast electronic communication, so when a new name comes along, everyone in the world has a chance to see or hear it. In the distant past, it would be easily conceivable for a politician to have a Boston-based nickname that no one in New York had even heard of; no chance of that anymore. I don’t think the derisive nicknames themselves have changed that much.
Insulting nicknames go back a loooong way. John Tyler was called “His Accidency” after he took office following the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841. Rutherford B. Hayes was called “His Fraudulency” after the contentious election of 1876. With teh Internets and all, there just seem to be a lot more people busily thinking up new ones.
I would be almost willing to bet that if you spent the time on the research you could find one for just about every President. I seem to recall even George catching some to the effect of “our King George” and possibly others.
That bean-pole who should have stuck to splitting logs, why, he got himself married to a southern sympathizer. He snuck into Washington for his inaugural, he did. And that’s putting it all nicely.
My Daddy called Carter ‘The Minister’ and Rosalind was ‘church lady’. He had some ugly names for Hillary as first lady.
Yep, anyone in politics gets nicknames. Trump made up a few, himself.
The Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield (well worth a visit) has an entire room filled with crude, insulting cartoons, letters and newspaper articles about him.