Donald Trump is many things. Most of all, he is the quintessential American entrepreneur. He sees the upside in everything. Even at the age of 78, he still has the energy to undertake every opportunity to advance himself and his interests.
When, for instance, he noticed a few weeks ago that Kamala Harris had claimed somewhat dubiously to have worked in McDonald’s, he didn’t just gripe that the media accepted her assertion without checking for evidence (though he did do that).
He decided that, as a promotional stunt, he would do something he suspected Harris had never actually done: work a shift in McDonald’s. In doing so, he knew he would create a Golden Arches campaign moment, a viral storm that the world would see.
You’ve almost certainly already seen a clip or two or three.
President @realDonaldTrump working the Drive Thru at McDonald’s! 🍟🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/pBeyYmeYFU
— Margo Martin (@margommartin) October 20, 2024
There’s Trump, in structured-reality TV star mode, pitching himself for a job: ‘I’ve always wanted to work at McDonald’s. I never did. I’m running against somebody that said she did but it turned out to be a total phony story so …’
There’s Trump salting the fries. There’s Trump manning the drive-thru window. ‘This is compliments of Trump,’ he says handing over the bags of junk food. ‘Look at this guy, I’m not going to mess with him,’ he says, charmingly, before adding: ‘Don’t eat too much.’ You must really hate Trump not to find these moments amusing.
‘I’m having a lot of fun,’ Trump says. And he so clearly is. The contrast with Kamala Harris in recent days could not be more striking. She’s been scolding interviewers, chiding Donald for having claimed, absurdly, to be the ‘father of IVF’, and angrily challenging the electorate to wake up to the threat of a second Trump term.
Harris’s fans – or Trump’s critics – are now busy denouncing the McDonald’s stunt as a bogus photo-up. But bogusness is the point: thanks to technology, our lives are all mediatised. We all experience life, politics and culture through algorithms, which aren’t designed to serve up intellectual sustenance. The internet gives the people what we want: and what we want, it turns out, is Donald Trump in an apron dishing out Big Macs in Lower Southampton, Pennsylvania.
Team Harris can hardly complain about artifice, anyway. Remember when the Obamas finally rang Harris to give her their endorsement? When Harris just happened to be surrounded by cameras for the call, and the line just happened to be bugged?
That was back in the summer, when Harris was surging in the polls, riding high on a wave of relief that Joe Biden had finally accepted he couldn’t go on. But it’s now late October, crunch time in the election, and the polls are tilting towards Trump again. Many Democrats are wondering: ‘Where’s the joy gone?’ And the answer is: Donald Trump has stolen it. He might never give it back.
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