Nice theory you've got there. Shame if anything were to happen to it...

Oh hey, y'know what's ELEVEN letters? Barack Obama.

No it's not new, many of you seem to just be out of the loop. Maybe its popularity is increasing, but it was already popular enough. People called Obama 44 all the time, and people called Bush 43 without his name frequently, too. It started being used a lot especially when comparing presidents or discussing presidential accomplishments. It was even used before the 41-43 issue, just less often and usually by political reporters... i personally remember hearing Clinton called 42 a few times, long before I followed politics. As for the whole "disrespect" angle, I wouldn't doubt people are using it more than ever in that way, but I'm pretty sure that trend started with Obama not Trump. I don't see anyone in this thread mentioning republicans using it that way against him, yet they did. I specifically remember 44 being used derisively as a way to imply that he would be the. last. president. And btw purely as a matter of semantics, I am 99.999% sure that Washington called Adams "#2" at least one time just to fuck with him.