General Discussion

And you can see it in the cartoon. Nixon is the first one to be depicted as shorter. Before my time, but I lived through Reagan and all the rest. I think you hit the nail on the head with Gingrich though... Before him, guys like Tip O'Neill were happy to try and find common ground with Republicans. Gingrich made that impossible with his vitriol.

To him and his progeny, Democrats weren't well-meaning people who had different ideas, they were the enemy, and no character assassination or attack was off limits. Bush the Lesser put that into practice par excellence (swiftboating and those fucking purple heart bandages) and Trump ramped it up to a million.