Politics - On Trump and McDonalds - George Godwyn

Politics - On Trump and McDonalds - George Godwyn

The problem with Trump's McDonald's party isn't that McDonald's is uniquely cheap or unhealthy or unfit for consumption or whatever other classist, pseudo-elitist, crap some of you folks seem to think. The unhealthiness of American fast food is generally overstated by almost everyone, as is its alleged inedibility, and the fact that people on a budget can conveniently access hot, delicious meals for the price of 15 minutes of labor is a miracle of the modern world and there’s no goddamn reason for an American President to be ashamed Americans know how to make some good, cheap hamburgers. Only a people as fat and comfortable and safe as Americans could be confused otherwise. Sorry, Belgium, you may have invented the french fry, McDonald’s made it into crack. Anyway, stop fronting. Y’all just had three cruncheritos and a mexican pizza from the Bell. Shit is good sometimes.

And the problem isn’t that Trump is a billionaire or that this repast took place at the White House on all their high falutin’ china, that fast food is somehow too undignified. America loves that shit. Billionaires eat McDonald’s, too (ask Warren Buffet), and when the fuck did we become the kind of nation that’s offended by our leaders having a goddamn burger on some fancy, company’s coming over, china, anyway? This isn’t Europe, the White House isn’t Versailles, as much as that doofus and our Centaurian first lady would like to pretend it is. McDonald’s is just fine on them high-class plates. (And by the way, the White House isn’t a palace because we don’t have kings and queens, we have employees, and as Trump’s employer, if he wants to snort addie off the Resolute desk and then piss on that big carpet seal while no one’s around, that’s fine with me. He should have the same right to misuse, abuse, and degrade his place of work as any other American worker. If your shirt is so stuffed shit like that is going to bug you, move to the 19th century or a Jane Austen novel or something.)



The problem, as always, with everything, is Trump. Trump isn’t just a rich guy, or the president. His every move, every thought, revolve around presenting himself as his own, vulgar, demented, version of what a rich man is. This is a man who lives in a gold tower and, so desperate to inhabit his sad, cartoon version of wealth, literally shits in a gold toilet. He is hyper-conscious of status signifiers, even though the signifiers he chooses signify exactly the opposite of his intention for anyone with a semi-functional aesthetic sense, the most famous, desperate, social climbing asshole in a world full of them. He is, always, always, always trying to look wealthy, special, “classy”, and terrified of looking otherwise. That’s the whole point of being Trump.

So this compulsive would-be elitist invites a college football team to the White House, many of whom come from modest backgrounds, to be feted by the leader of their nation on what should be one of the proudest days of their lives, looking forward to some sumptuous, chef prepared, eight course White House meal, and this cheap prick, rather than giving them something to remember, tosses a bunch of the same shit they’ve been eating their entire lives at them as a cute little publicity stunt. One of the players actually commented that he thought it was a joke.

Trump could have served almost any other guest to the White House exactly that meal, any president could have, and it would’ve been fine. Imagine Obama, or Clinton, or Reagan, serving a bunch of McDonald’s to Queen Elizabeth or Vladimir Putin. People would have chuckled a bit, and it would’ve shown the leaders to be human, just like us, juice dripping down their chins, just like every other “politician and foreign dignitary eat hot dog” shot.

But Trump is way too stupid to understand the endearing, folksy irony of that. Trump is never going to serve that shit to his Saudi buddies, or his Russian handlers, or any other VIP. He feeds those people steak at Mara Lago (because steak is his idea of the way rich people eat, of course).

Trump didn’t feed those kids McDonald’s because he genuinely loves McDonald’s, that would probably be a little endearing. Of course he genuinely does love McDonald’s, but that’s not why he did it. What’s bugging us all is that this compulsive, status-obsessed wannabe fed those kids McDonald’s because he looked at a bunch of working and middle-class kids, of various ethnicities, none of whom are famous or powerful, and he thought “People like this eat hamburgers, they don’t need steak. McDonald's will be fine for these people.”

Trump, tone deaf and socially repulsive as always, managed to ferret out precisely the wrong thing to do and do it. Out of the sociopath’s inability to empathize with another, his would-be elitist’s obsession with class signaling, and likely just pure stinginess, he fed exactly the wrong food to exactly the wrong people, the one group of White House guests who really should have been treated like VIP’s. People who would have enjoyed it and allowed us to enjoy it.

What amazes us, what infuriates, us about Trump, is that while reveling in his abject personal grossness and complete lack of taste or class or style, as well as his touted working-class preferences, he has somehow convinced himself that he is the wealthy, cultivated sophisticate every fucking Burger King eating one of us knows goddamn well he ain’t. Somehow, some-fucking-how, he manages to both revel in his supposedly working-class appetites and then look down on people who eat the same shit he does. It’s fucking Apeneck Sweeney convincing himself he’s Louie the 14th because every day he voids his three Whopper lunch into a gold shitter, putting his nose up at the rest of us for having a cheeseburger and, you know, having porcelain in our bathrooms, too fucking stupid to know how completely, utterly, transcendentally boorish and cheap and gauche and truly nasty every single fucking thing he does and says is, as well as every toilet he has plated.

But under all that, what bugs us, what really bugs us, what’s so infuriating about that photo, is that smug ass look on his face. Like he just did those kids the biggest favor in the fucking world. Yeah, kids, here you go - I eat steak (ketchup steak, but still steak) every night because I’m the fucking king shit on turd mountain, but you peasants will be overjoyed when you see that I’ve thrown these lovely hamberbers to you.” That look says it all - sure it’s your first time at the White House, the biggest day of your lives, but you’re still just peons. Behold the generosity of your leader and the bountiful table scraps he has laid before you, this day.

In those pictures, standing behind that table, that smug, shit-eating grin fuck, presenting his grand $3000 repast, is looking directly at us. That’s him telling us “yeah, I’m using the highest office in the land as nothing more than a grift to line my pockets, I’ve given all my friends and the actually wealthy people I want to suck up to all the favors I can as fast as administratively possible, but here you go, you jerks, serfs, fucking peons, eat the fuck up. I’ll be having prime rib, but you look more like the type to enjoy a couple bucks worth of cold ass McDonald’s.”

Like a five-year-old thinking he’s stealing candy when everyone sees exactly like he’s doing, this dumb fuck thinks he’s getting away something. He thinks he’s terribly clever and crafty for pulling the most blatant, obvious, half-assed political scam in the history of the republic, and to make matters worse, he thinks we’re a bunch of dumb assholes for falling for it. That’s what’s so fucking obnoxious about it. This knuckle-dragging imbecile manages to stumble ass-backwards into office on a wave of reactionary race-hatred and he fucking thinks he’s Machiavelli and PT Barnum rolled into one, pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes when we all see exactly what the fuck he’s doing. It wasn’t brains or cleverness or tactics that got him elected, he was just the most evil, stupid asshole around at exactly the point that a bunch of people wanted exactly that sort of evil, stupid asshole.

That’s what’s really bugging us about those photos. He’s the shittiest, nastiest, most classless little punk fuck, a complete, daddy-gave-me-everything, failure, and everyone knows it, but there he is, the most powerful man in the world, telling us “I’m better than you, so I take what I want and you’ll like it, but here’s some good-ass fries on a silver platter. Tuck in, losers.”

Just like he tells us every fucking day, every time he opens his mouth.