Donald Trump is also overweight. According to his personal physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson, Trump weighs 239 pounds. Trump is relatively tall, at 6'3", and thus he falls one pound shy of being categorized as "obese".
Mockery of Trump's physical appearance is more deserved than it is for, say, Chris Christie, not because Trump is politically awful (though he is), but because he has specifically attacked others based on appearance. Just over two months ago, Trump tweeted a (STRONG) implication that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is "short and fat". Trump joked about referring to Rosie O'Donnell as a fat pig during a Republican presidential debate.
Donald Trump speaks to a very basic urge to mock on appearance. He doesn't actually care if Rosie O'Donnell is overweight--he cared that she is an outspoken liberal. The same Republicans who would mock Hillary Clinton for having short hair and wearing pants suits didn't mind the look from Elizabeth Dole because their criticisms of Clinton were actually about who Clinton fundamentally is. One might think they should, you know, stick to the subject at hand, but people really enjoy personal attacks. Were Republicans crass for exploiting that bit of humanity? Perhaps, but they're also really good at politics.
Of course, the left isn't innocent in this matter. Today proves that.
Is Donald Trump actually 239 pounds? Maybe! It does seem a bit convenient that he comes ever-so-close to obese, but does it really matter?
Donald Trump weighs more than I do and has a Body Mass Index higher than I do--this is going off the measurements he has supplied. He does not have a higher Body Mass Index than I've had at my peak weight. He does not have a higher Body Mass Index than either of my parents. He does not have a higher Body Mass Index than many of you.
Obviously, the reason Trump is being mocked for his weight is because he sucks on levels beyond his physical appearance, but when this mockery is broadcast on social media (and since virtually nobody has a direct line of communication with Trump, any criticism of his weight is being done as a matter of public grandstanding), the wrong message is being sent to those who are overweight and/or obese and, say, don't want to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Particularly with Trump, none of this is coming from a position of concern--calling him fat isn't a way of convincing him to adopt more healthy habits (encouraging healthy behavior is fine in ways that body shaming is not). We are correlating being bad and being overweight. This may not be our intent but it is what we are doing.
This is a problem we have as a culture, particularly online. When we want to criticize Gamergaters who targeted female video game developers and reviewers, we call them ugly virgins. But is the problem whether they are ugly and/or virgins, or is the problem what they are actually doing? In addition to shaming those who feel unattractive or sexually inexperienced who don't target women demanding to be treated as equals, are married Gamergaters (which very much exist) immune from the criticisms? When similar criticisms are levied at the alt-right, would a leader who, say, is married to his third model wife, be part of it?
If the worst thing you can say about Donald Trump is that he is fat, you aren't trying hard enough.
