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Usage: Trump debuted “Ron DeSanctimonious” at a rally in Pennslyvania days before the 2022 midterm elections. The Times reported at the time that it was one of several options Trump had been workshopping with friends and advisers; Roger Stone tested it out in a Truth Social post days before the rally.
The nickname was poorly received among Republicans because (a) they were annoyed that Trump was attacking a GOP governor up for reelection and (b) it sucks. Nevertheless, Trump persisted. He’s been using it frequently on Truth Social ever since.
DeSantis laughed off the nickname in a March 21 interview with Piers Morgan. “I don’t know how to spell ‘DeSanctimonious.’ I don’t really know what it means, but I kind of like it,” said the Harvard and Yale graduate. “It’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels. I mean, we’ll go with that, that’s fine.”
Feedback: There isn’t much to like about “Ron DeSanctimonious”: It’s long, it’s clunky, and it feels inauthentic. When Trump tweeted an attack on “Sanctimonious James Comey,” in 2018 it sparked an online debate over whether he really came up with the five-syllable insult himself.
Its message is also out of date. Trump launched the nickname shortly after DeSantis’s wife tweeted a laughably over-the-top video suggesting her husband was literally sent by God to bully woke Floridians. “Sanctimonious” certainly fit back then. But now Trump has taken to floating the allegation that DeSantis had an inappropriate relationship with high-school girls when he was a teacher. And he reportedly plans to accuse his rival of being lenient on child pornography cases while serving as an assistant U.S. Attorney. So is Trump saying DeSantis is a sleaze or that he’s self-righteous?
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