Trump also avoids language that might make him come across as small in any way. “Donald,” interestingly, is one of the handful of English names that actually does have a commonly-used diminutive form. Trump, though, insists on going by “Donald” in his public-facing life rather than the more familiar “Don” or his childhood “Donny.” Using one’s diminutive name is actually extremely common in American politics — think Bill (William) Clinton, Jimmy (James) Carter, Al (Albert) Gore, Bernie (Bernard) Sanders. Trump, though, shuns informality in a rare deviation from the norm (his preferred address is the even-more-removed “Mr. Trump”).
Jokes about Trump’s preoccupation with his size have varied in politeness over the years, but have seemingly always been around. Trump’s obsession with both his perceived and literal physical stature, though, are most nakedly on display when he bristles at insults directed at his hands. Former Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter has claimed that after he described Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in Spy Magazine in 1988, the real-estate investor turned reality-TV host would periodically send Carter photos of himself with “his hand [circled] in gold Sharpie in a valiant effort to highlight the length of his fingers.” Trump has continued to publicly press that his hands are actually bigger than normal, telling The Washington Post in a 2016 interview that they’re “slightly large, actually,” as well as informing Hurricane Harvey victims in 2017 that his hands were too big to fit the plastic gloves provided to pass out sandwiches.
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