The Wall Street Journal wrote "This is ugly even by Mr. Trump’s standards" in 2022. They wrote it again.

There's Trump standard ugliness and his Über Ugliness.

Feb 21, 2026

In 2022 in “Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal Condemns Trump’s ‘Ugly’ and ‘Reckless’ Rhetoric About ‘Death Wish’ on Mitch McConnell” they wrote:

“The ‘death wish’ rhetoric is ugly even by Mr. Trump’s standards and deserves to be condemned,” the Journal’s editorial board wrote in an editorial published late Sunday. “Mr. Trump’s apologists claim he merely meant Mr. McConnell has a political death wish, but that isn’t what he wrote. It’s all too easy to imagine some fanatic taking Mr. Trump seriously and literally, and attempting to kill Mr. McConnell. Many supporters took Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about former Vice President Mike Pence all too seriously on Jan. 6.”

They used this phrase again.

I can’t show you an image of how these words looked in their editorial because I don’t have subscription. However, this is how the part anybody can read looks on their website. Click the image to enlarge it.

For a summary read the RawStory article Trump hit with stinging rebuke from WSJ after tirade: ‘Ugly even by Trump’s standards.’

Excerpt:

…. targeting Chief Justice John Roberts and conservative Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.
Trump escalated his rhetoric further, calling the three conservatives “fools and lapdogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats,” and describing Gorsuch and Barrett — both his own appointees — as “an embarrassment to their families.” He also claimed without evidence that “the Court has been swayed by foreign interests.”
The editorial board hammered Trump’s tantrum.
“This is ugly even by Mr. Trump’s standards,” the editors wrote.
And it could incite violence.
“This is rhetoric that could cause some deranged Trump acolyte to turn to violence against a Justice,” the board warned.

This is what GTP4.0 says:

The phrase “ugly even by Trump’s standards” has been used in various contexts, particularly in political commentary, but there is no definitive count of how many times it has appeared across all media. It’s often employed to critique the behavior, policies, or rhetoric associated with Donald Trump, highlighting moments deemed particularly objectionable or hypocritical.
Most notably, the phrase tends to surface in discussions of Trump’s controversial statements or actions, especially surrounding topics of race, decorum in leadership, and media interactions.

Examples of Usage

Political commentary often uses this phrase to emphasize the absurdity or offensiveness of particular incidents.
Various opinion pieces and analyses referencing Trump’s personal style or public persona have invoked similar phrases during critical evaluations.

While we can confirm that it has gained traction in discourse, quantifying its exact occurrences would require a comprehensive analysis across numerous publications and forums, which isn’t readily available.

One would expect the word “ugly” to be used to describe Trump’s behavior in progressive publications. In fact, The Ugliest American: How Trump’s Bigotry Isolates and Imperils America was published in The Progressive Magazine in 2017.

This isn’t The Progressive Magazine. It’s the conservative Wall Street Journal. They have been critical of Trump before, but this statement is critical of Trump even by the Wall Street Journal’s usual standards of restrained disapproval. They have moved into the realm of censure and condemnation..

“Ugly even by Mr. Trump’s standards” is a powerful and telling phrase. Consider that there’s Trump standard ugliness, and something even worse. Maybe we should call it Trump’s Über Ugliness.