When Donald Trump literally belittles his perceived enemies — by mocking their stature — he is weaponizing a long-standing maxim of US presidential politics: taller guys tend to win the White House.
Trump — who stands at about 6’3″ (1m90) depending on which source you use — has hammered away of late at Mike Bloomberg, the former New York mayor whose campaign for the Democratic nomination is gathering pace.
Bloomberg officially is 5’8″, but in recent tweets and interviews, Trump has lopped four inches off and alleged that Bloomberg asked to stand on a box during Democratic primary debates.
He also christened the media mogul with a new nickname: “Mini Mike.”
All this height-shaming is not new for the Republican leader. He also has slapped ‘little’ or ‘liddle’ (or even liddle’, apostrophe included) on a number of lawmakers of varying heights — Adam Schiff, Marco Rubio, Bob Corker, to name a few.
Mini Mike is a short ball (very) hitter. Tiny club head speed. KEEP AMERICA GREAT! https://t.co/5DUj16jtZf
Indeed, Trump seems keenly aware that in America, height matters.
What sets Trump apart is how unabashedly he is trying to use it to his advantage.
“It is not typical of what presidents do,” said Gregg Murray, a political scientist at Augusta University in Georgia who has studied the role of height in how Americans vote.
Jealousy
Look back at Trump’s recent predecessors and they were all at least six feet tall, or close to it — Barack Obama, George W. Bush, his father, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, to name a few.
Indeed, Americans are so caught up with the height of their leaders that during one of the 2016 Republican presidential debates, Google has said the most frequent online search was not about a policy issue. It was about how tall Jeb Bush was (answer: 6’3″).
This predilection for taller leaders — more stature suggesting more strength, especially in times of strife, says Murray — is hardly a uniquely American thing.
To wit, Prime Ministers Shinzo Abe of Japan and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel are both taller than the average man in their countries.
While he is not an elected leader, so is President Xi Jinping of China, who stands 5’11”.
France’s Charles de Gaulle was a towering 6’5″. Jacques Chirac was 6’2″. Of course, Nicolas Sarkozy was 5’5″.
But in general, experts say tall folk have an advantage in politics — and other walks of life as well.
“There is overwhelming evidence that tall people have a much better chance to reach higher positions in organizations” in any country, said Abraham Buunk, a Dutch academic who co-authored a 2013 study in Leadership Quarterly entitled “Tall claims? Sense and nonsense about the importance of height of US presidents.”
“The advantage of taller candidates is potentially explained by perceptions associated with height: taller presidents are rated by experts as ‘greater,’ and having more leadership and communications skills,” the study said.
The world’s tallest men on average are the Dutch at six feet, according to the scientific journal eLife.
Buunk said he and three colleagues took note, and eventually studied American presidents, when a Canadian graduate student colleague who had always thought he was tall came to the Netherlands and “felt rather average.”
“We decided to examine the psychological effects of height, starting with jealousy,” Buunk wrote in an email to AFP.
Elections lure tall candidates
In the United States, in presidential elections held through 2012, the taller of the two major-party candidates won 58 percent of the time.
Murray says this is largely because elections tend to lure taller people as candidates.
“It’s not like we all get in a room and point to the people who are taller,” he told AFP.
“Tall males are much more likely to think themselves qualified to be a leader and are therefore much more likely to put themselves forward as a leader.”
In this campaign, two women are running for the Democratic nomination — Elizabeth Warren is about 5’8″, the same as rival Pete Buttigieg.
Amy Klobuchar is several inches shorter — in a debate in December, she quipped that James Madison had been “a pretty good size for a president — he was five-foot-four.”
In 2016, Trump’s Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton stood at about 5’5″.
During one of their presidential debates that year, Trump stood behind Clinton at one point as she spoke — seen as camera-hogging clowning by some, and outright bullying by others.
Murray argued that in America, at the national level at least, height is a built-in problem for women because it prevents them from looking “physically formidable” for voters seeking a leader they deem to be strong.
Of course, as much as Trump tries to depict himself as taller than his opponents and says he is 6’3″, it does not always work.
Just look at photos from the 2016 Republican debates — Jeb Bush is clearly taller.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
