President Donald Trump may have rolled out a new nickname for his opponent in the 2020 presidential election on Wednesday: "Joe Hiden." The president tweeted about former Vice President Joe Biden, rolling out the new moniker without explanation. While some of his supporters quickly inferred it to mean that Biden is "hiding" from the campaign trail, others thought it might have been a typo.
The president wrote out "Hiden'" with an apostrophe on Wednesday, as if he were spelling the word "hidin'" phonetically. His followers were quick to take implications from the tweet, joking about Biden "hiding" at home in his basement throughout the election. However, the president's tweet did not refer to this, and a few hours later, he referred to Biden by his previous nickname: "Sleepy Joe."
Still, "Joe Hiden" took over social media for a while on Wednesday afternoon, stirring up a fresh conversation about Trump and his penchant for assigning nicknames to political opponents. While some seemed to laugh at this new entry, many thought it was the president's weakest work yet.
Aside from that, it drew a wealth of quippy retorts almost immediately, signifying that it was an easy jab to turn back on Trump. For one thing, many respondents pointed out that it was Trump who went into the White House bunker when peaceful protesters surrounded the White House and has ordered massive new barricades, fences and walls constructed around the presidential home. If anyone is "hiding," they argued, it's him.
Moreover, many users guessed that the president was just lashing out after the latest poll showed Biden to have a significant lead in the 2020 presidential election. On Wednesday, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 40 percent of respondents intend to vote for Trump, while 47 percent intend to vote for Biden. This is especially damning as it comes right after the RNC 2020, which typically gives an incumbent like Trump a big boost in the polls.
All in all, it does not look like the nickname "Joe Hiden" will impact the election too much, although it did produce some solid memes and take-downs. Here is a look at the brief "Joe Hiden" trend on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon.