SHORT-FINGERED VULGARIAN / PIGEON-TOED VULGARIAN vol.2 _ SPY APRIL 1988 / MEEZ MAY 2026

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So, what began at Spy with 1988’s “the short-fingered vulgarian” phrase, ended up having quite a run beyond Spy magazine. Yet for Graydon Carter, the Spy editor and prime mover of the “short-fingered vulgarian” phrase, Trump would be unforgiving. As Carter told NPR’s Morning Edition in March 2016: …He [Trump] blames me for this more than Kurt [Andersen, the other Spy editor]. He’ll send me pictures, tear sheets from magazines… With a gold sharpie, he’ll circle his fingers and in his handwriting say, “see, not so short.” And this [last] April when he sent me one, I should have held onto the thing. But I sent it right back by messenger with a note stapled at the top saying, “actually, quite short.” And I know it just gives him absolute fits. And now that it’s become sort of part of the whole [2016] campaign rhetoric, I’m sure he wants to just kill me …with those little hands… /.../ #ThePopHistoryDig #SpyMagazine #ShortFingeredVulgarian #DonaldTrump #PigeonToedVulgarian #AivarVendel #KumariImedemaa #EndelLeppFashionHouse #ELFHTrends #GentlemenFromEstonia #ErioperatsioonWegebau #KumariSuvi #LeppBoxing #VisitKyrbla #GloryInKirbla #MartinTeeSuviKirblas #MartinTeeFanClub #DiscoGenitalium #TangoKyrblium #MinuKannOnPuhas #TeemajaAmbroosia #ÄmblikutädiÖöklubi #TheGardenOfMensFashionDelights #GentlemensFloralCabinet #Meestemoemuuseum #MeMoMu #MEEZ #MEEZ0052026 The Pop History Dig: https://pophistorydig.com/topics/tag/... Publishing & Satire “Trump Send-Ups” Spy Magazine, 1980s-1990s

In April 1988, Spy magazine put Donald Trump — then New York’s rising realtor and tower builder – on its cover. He was shown in a smiling, “thumbs-up” Trumpian pose, having by then made a name for himself with, among other properties, the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. Spy magazine’s cover, however, was followed by a second inside cover, this one showing Trump taking a fall. Spy, in fact, had a long-running bit of jab-and-spoof with Trump, all well before his more loftier positions, yet prescient in its warnings. Based in New York City, Spy was a satirical monthly magazine published from 1986 to 1998. Co-founded by editors Graydon Carter and Kurt Andersen, the magazine specialized in irreverent and satirical pieces targeting the American media and entertainment industries, often mocking high society and prominent celebrities and other public figures, skewering their pretensions, exposing their corruption and foibles. Trump was among the targets, noted in parody pieces that portrayed him as a self-obsessed real estate developer, among other things. The April 1988 edition also included a fake book publishing ad for Trump’s then popular book, The Art of the Deal, as shown below. /.../