Trump stopped calling people 'stupid' for a while. Now he's back at it.

published 6 August 2018

President Trump had a long track record of calling people "stupid" — until he put "president" in front of his name.

Disparaging enemies' intelligence in tweets and interviews was Trump's go-to insult right up until his election, analysis from The Washington Post has found. November 2016 proved a turning point in Trump's vocabulary, but he's recently turned back to his dummy-spewing ways.

From June 2015, when he declared his candidacy, until his election, Trump used "stupid," "dummy," "dumb," or "low IQ" as an insult at least 53 times, per the Post. But he has mostly left those words out of his vocabulary throughout his presidency, save for the time he used one on MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski last July. Now, Trump's stupid-o-meter is through the roof once again, as he has disparaged someone's intelligence 13 times since the start of this year.

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Whose intelligence Trump has insulted has changed as well, the Post points out. Before his election, Trump's opponents were usually fellow conservatives and usually white — think former President George W. Bush's adviser Karl Rove and radio host Glenn Beck. Now, Trump has gone after black people, namely Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and CNN host Don Lemon. Waters has been called "low IQ" seven times alone.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.

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