Dem
51
GOP
49
Donald Trump has denied that he will call Ron DeSantis "Meatball Ron" during his campaign, even though it is short and catchy. He said that would be a slur on DeSantis' heritage. All eight of DeSantis' great grandparents were born in Italy. But since when has Trump tried to avoid slurring anyone? Our guess is that someone on his staff told him that some of his supporters are of Italian heritage and they might not like the nickname.
Actually, "Meatball Ron" is somewhat different from all Trump's other nicknames. It doesn't explicitly point out some imagined characteristic of the recipient. "Low-energy Jeb" says that Jeb doesn't have much energy. "Crooked Hillary" implies that Hillary is dishonest. "Lyin' Ted" says that Ted (Cruz) is a liar. "Sleepy Joe" implies that Biden is not up to the job of being president. "Crazy Bernie" is meant to suggest that Sanders has lost his marbles. There are more and not all imply something about the recipient, but most do.
"Meatball Ron" doesn't directly impute any characteristic to DeSantis like the others. All it does is maybe insult Italians, although meatballs are common to many cuisines (actually, more like most cuisines). Swedish meatballs are at least as famous as Italian meatballs. Here is a link to a page with over 45 meatball recipes, including Greek meatballs, Spanish meatballs, Mexican meatballs, Vietnamese meatballs, Mongolian meatballs, Thai meatballs, Korean meatballs, Moroccan meatballs, Dutch meatballs, and more. Although if you decide to put British meatballs on the bill of fare, you'll want to be careful how you word things. In any event, "meatball" doesn't really imply "Italian."
On the other hand, "Ron DeSanctimonious" does fit the pattern. It suggests that DeSantis has a "holier-than-thou" attitude, which isn't that far off the mark. It's just longer and probably half of Trump's base doesn't even know what "sanctimonious" means. He may have to keep looking. Maybe he needs to go to some elementary school and ask the third graders in the playground at recess how they insult kids they don't like. After all, that's the level he is operating at, so why not go to the source? (V)