Does anyone think “sanctimonious” is a part of Trump’s vocabulary, or even that he knows what it means, apart from a general sense that it’s bad, a name you don’t want to be called?
Lord knows, I’m no fan of Ron Desantis, but there are a bunch of words I’d use to describe him before I’d label him “sanctimonious.” Is there a way for that adjective to apply to him correctly that I’m missing? Some act of sanctimony he’s performed, or am I correctly in thinking that Trump just came up with the word, having heard it or recognized it as a negative word, and decided to slap it on him?
If his opponent were named “Ron Derelevono” do you have the slightest doubt Trump would have dubbed him “Ron Irrelevant”? Or if were named “Ron Decisso” he would have called him “Wrong Decision”? Actually that last one might be too clever for Trump to come up with on his own.
Isn’t that enough? In this mode of nicknaming all you do is find a word with a negative connotation to replace their own.
‘Sanctimonious’ probably is in Trump’s vocabulary, something he’s heard used and probably used himself defensively. This kind of politics is Trump’s specialty. There is certainly a good chance he didn’t originate the use, but it’s not at all impossible that he did.
It just doesn’t fit with Trump’s usual MO for naming his opponents. Lyin’ Ted, Low-energy Jeb, Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe, Little Marco – these were effective because they played up a pre-existing perception about each politician and didn’t try pull some cute play-on-words. Agree with @Love_Rhombus, “Meatball Ron” is a much better nickname.
Doesn’t really matter does it? It does fit DeSantis, he seems to be working the sanctimonious types in Florida, but so is Trump. So it’s just to make DeSantis seem bad to an audience that doesn’t dig deeply into meanings.
Not particularly. “Meatball” is a word associated with “spaghetti” so there’s a bit of an anti-Italian slur in there somewhere, but it’s pretty weak sauce.