There’s a PR technique of the phony self-deprecating issue that helps endear a figure.
For JFK, it was his Boston accent (a comedy album based on it was a bestseller).
For Bush, one was his seemingly forced mispronunciation of words such as ‘Nookyoolur’.
For Obama — boy, are his ears big.
This let Obama laugh at jokes about his big ears ‘at his expense’ making him seem like a ‘good guy’ who could laugh about it.
So, someone sent a memo that trump really doesn’t like the comment his hands are small, so his opponents look for chances to make the comment.
This has zero, I estimate, political benefit — and a harm. It normalizes trump as just one more figure with a harmless self-deprecating issue.
His hand size has nothing to do with why he is a disaster.
Talking about hand size implies the speaker has little real issues to discuss.
I think we’d be better off sticking to important issues, and having a minimum of comments about things like hand size and hair transplant surgery that are like Jay Leno’s chin, PR issues.
Remember the saying, there’s no such thing as bad publicity.
[Edit to add a point I left out: there is a difference that trump is not ‘in on the joke’ and intentionally using the issues for his PR benefit the the the others mentions have.
But I don’t think that changes the issue much about the benefit he gets anyway. He doesn’t get the ‘he’s a good guy laughing’ benefit, but it’s still normalizing and hurts the other real issues.
And he has been able to use these things to his benefit. Remember his having a woman examine his hair on stage? His terrible comment about his hand/genital size seemed to help more than hurt.]
It might seem hard to keep saying the same points, but it’s needed if they’re not to just be tossed aside and we want them to get to his supporters. Repetition doesn’t only work for the big lie.
Remember things like Hillary’s e-mails. Did Republicans say, ok, we mentioned it, let’s not bring it up again, or let’s mix in a bunch of pantsuit jokes with the attacks?
Talking about the petty things instead of the real problems is playing into his tiny hands.