In a recent editorial meeting with the New York Times, Donald Trump, in response to Marco Rubio's wisecrack about the diminutive size of his hands, (and by insinuation, the smallness of something else) went on a tirade about how big and beautiful they are. "People tell me all the time," he told reporters, "how big and lovely my hands are." Trump seems to be overly sensitive about his mitts, and it got me thinking about what else is really small about The Donald. I came up with this list.
1. His small heart
The Donald says he loves everyone. But the truth is, he makes Dick Cheney look like Mother Theresa. Take for instance, his (thankfully) failed attempt to force widow, Vera Coking, out of her home of thirty years to make room for a limo parking lot. His defense? ". . . Everybody coming into Atlantic City sees this terrible house instead of staring at beautiful fountains and beautiful other things that would be good." As the comedian, Gilbert Gottfried quipped, "Trump is Hitler without the warmth."
2. His small ideas
The Donald never tires of telling us how his policies are going to make America great again. "You'll be winning so much, you'll get tired of winning." But truly big ideas break new ground; they're original and innovative. The Donald's ideas are all small, rehashed, knee-jerk reactions: Build a wall, bomb the sh*t out of ISIS, deport eleven million people. The Donald's ideas are not just simple and small, they're simple-minded and appeal to small minds. The Donald's plans for America would have the Founding Fathers spinning in their graves like a lathe.
3. His small intellect
The Donald tells us he went to the best schools and that he is very, very, very, very smart. "No one is smarter than me," is a boast of which, he never tires. But is he, really? His foray into hate politics lost him lucrative contracts worth perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars. His insane rhetoric has irreparably damaged his greatest single asset, his brand, and all he has received in return is the temporary adoration of a few million marginalized whites that were never the target audience for his glitzy hotels, casinos and golf courses, anyway. Smart move? Hardly.
4. His small regard for others
The Donald tells us that he's looking out for the common man. Yet, he is famous for his hateful rhetoric, name-calling, racism, xenophobia and misogyny. But his disregard for other people doesn't end with his enemies. He's even willing to expose his followers to criminal prosecution by urging them to commit violence. The Donald clearly cares only for himself. A recent analysis of his speech pattern showed that his most-used word is "I". What was his fourth most-used word? You guessed it, "Trump."
5. His small vocabulary
"I have the best words," The Donald says. And his hateful rhetoric does resonate with a certain demographic. While it's true that most politicians tend to use simple language, a recent analysis by Carnegie Mellon University found that Trump takes it to a new low; it determined that he speaks at just under the level of a sixth-grader. I guess that makes sense, though, since a similar study found that his followers have the worst Facebook grammar. As Trump has famously said, "I love the poorly educated!"
6. His (relatively) small fortune
To hear the The Donald tell it, you'd think he's the richest man in the world, but in reality, he's not even close. He claims he's worth $10 billion but Bloomberg News puts it much lower at $2.9 billion. According to Forbes Magazine, he's only the 121st richest guy in America, well behind Bill Gates with $76 Billion. So in the world of Billionaires, Trump is a pauper.
7. His small base
The Donald tells us that the whole country is behind him. And to watch media coverage, you could be forgiven for thinking his base must be huge. But the fact is, it's actually smaller than you might imagine. His supporters are, like The Donald himself, loud and obnoxious and that makes his group of worshipers seem bigger than it is. It's hard to know the exact number, but a recent estimate, based on poling data, put the percentage of likely voters who say they would vote for The Donald at between 8 and 16 percent. That's nowhere near enough to win the White House.
Bonus small thing: his chance of actually becoming President
The Donald boasts that he is a shoe-in, but Trump's path to the White House is actually torturous and barely plausible. A recent poll by Bloomberg Politics has Clinton beating Trump 54% to 36% and Sanders whipping him by a whopping 24%. In order for Trump to triumph, he would not only have to win all the states Romney won in 2012, he'd also have to turn some traditionally blue states red, an uphill fight to say the least. And, in addition to fighting the Democrats, he has to go up against his own party, too. Considering that he has alienated women and minorities, the very voting blocks he needs to win, it seems unlikely that we'll ever be forced to utter those unthinkable two words: President Trump.
Darby Roach is a writer, adventurer and observer of world politics. He recently rode his bicycle around the world and has written a new book about the odyssey, Over The Hill And Around The World: A Baby Boomer's Ride To The End Of The Earth.