Ron DeSantis in platform heels? Why size matters in politics

As Republican Ron DeSantis is torn down to size by Donald Trump and forced to deny that he wears lifts in his boots to add height, Richard Godwin looks at our shrinking world leaders and asks: should DeSantis let the insults go over his head?

Honey I shrunk the world’s politicians – how leaders are getting smaller and smaller (Getty/PA/iStock)

Donald Trump, like every successful bully, has a cruel genius for names – as Crooked Hillary, Sleepy Joe and Nervous Nancy will attest. Jeb Bush, his rival for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, never recovered from “Low Energy Jeb”. Elizabeth Warren stood little chance once her claims to Native American ancestry had her dubbed “Pocahontas”.

And yet Trump initially struggled with Ron DeSantis, his least serious and therefore most serious rival to the 2024 Republican presidential candidacy. “Meatball Ron” never quite pinged. “No Charisma Trump” was presumably dismissed out of hand.

But why go low when you can go lower? Tiny D! It’s Tiny D, isn’t it. Size, in Trumpland, matters. Trump also has “Liddle Mike Pence” and “Mini Mike Bloomberg” in circulation. And if you’re unwilling to go after DeSantis for naked greed, maliciousness, subverting democratic norms, etc – and you can see why Trump might be on shaky ground here – a slight on his manhood is clearly the way to go.