Trump the unlikely populist at the McDonald’s fryolator
Trump does some funny stuff here, working the fryolater and then the driveup line at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. It drew the usual outrage from Harris supporters:
The restaurant was closed to the public during his visit, and NBC News reported that the customers who Trump served at the drive-thru were pre-screened by his campaign and vetted for security.
Those measures come after Trump has been the target of two assassination attempts earlier this year– one at a rally in Pennsylvania, and one at a Florida golf course.
The visit amounted to a campaign stunt to generate coverage, and it drew criticism from the Harris campaign and its allies.
“Donald Trump, a 78 year old, who’s never earned a real paycheck in his life, put on a show, playing dress up to act like he’s one of us,” Shawn Fain, head of the United Auto Workers (UAW), said at a Harris campaign event Sunday.
One of the many many many things about Trump that drives the left wild is his ability to appeal to what used to be called “the common man,” despite his great wealth and the fact that he was born to wealth. But his popular/populist appeal is real and was one of the first things I noticed about him back in 2015 shortly after he launched his presidential campagin. In August of that year I wrote a post about him entitled “Trump the unlikely populist.” I wasn’t a fan at the time – I preferred other GOP candidates, and the fight for the nomination was just beginning. But I certainly noticed his appeal.
Here’s an excerpt from the post:
Trump has mastered not just the “art of the deal” but the art of giving a speech that sounds like ad-libbing stream-of-consciousness but is not. As he went along it occurred to me that what he is doing is cheerleading for America, reiterating over and over what he would do for America and what he would do for the people he is speaking to, and fitting his words to their desire that America be what it once was. It’s the flip side of Obama’s hope and change: they hope that he can change things back to a time when America was great, and that’s his explicit message and the slogan on the very flyover-country-looking hats he wears and sells. This is a guy who knows marketing, and it’s no accident that the slogan is also pretty much what Reagan used in 1980 (Reagan put the word “let’s” at the beginning of the phrase, but otherwise it was exactly the same). …
Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m not a Trump supporter, but that I also get his appeal. Watching him speak at length, I “got” it even more. He makes all other politicians look boring and stilted (hey, many of them are boring and stilted). He makes it all sound so simple—just as Obama did, but in a completely different direction and with a completely, and I mean completely, different style. Populist appeal is a neat trick in a man who’s a multi-billionaire and who grew up in enormous wealth and graduated from Wharton. But he’s got it, and although I’m sure he carefully nurtures it he manages to make it look natural.
From the start of Trump’s rise in the polls I’ve taken him very seriously as a phenomenon. I haven’t understood those who casually asserted “He’s never going to win the nomination.” I’ve long thought he could, because the force of that appeal is obvious, and he’s somehow made himself immune to being criticized for anything he says. His niche is “the more outrageous, the better,” and the more extreme his utterances the more his supporters seem to like him—although not all of what he says is extreme, of course, and some is just common sense.
If I were one of the other Republican candidates I’d be very very scared. And if I were one of the Democratic candidates I’d be scared, too.
Over nine years ago.
That recent quote from Fain, the head of the UAW, went like this: “Donald Trump, a 78 year old, who’s never earned a real paycheck in his life, put on a show, playing dress up to act like he’s one of us.” What does being 78 have to do with it – except that the Harris campaign likes to hammer home the idea that Trump is worn and tired? And of course Trump is “playing dress up” – the whole thing was a humorous troll of Kamala, and no one was meant to think that Trump was presenting himself as a guy who really worked, or had worked, at McDonald’s.
But two parts of Fain’s sentence interest me even more. The first is Fain’s statement that Trump acts like he’s one of us. But who is this “us,” kimosabe? McDonald’s workers are not auto workers and the job is more likely to be a brief stint for young people just starting out. That’s the way Harris has presented her supposed history at the chain. Nor is Harris “one of us” either, of course, although – unlike Trump – she really does pretend to be. Her parents were members of the intellectual class, she was raised in the liberal enclave of Berkeley and then the foreign one of Montreal, she then became a prosecutor protected and promoted by a well-connected man (Willie Brown) and the rich donors of San Francisco, and yet she keeps telling us how solidly middle-class she is.
The second part of Fain’s comment that especially interests me is the assertion that Trump has “never earned a real paycheck in his life.” I wonder whether NBC, the network where Trump’s long-running TV show “The Apprentice” aired, would agree. I’m going to assume he didn’t do the show for free and that he got something amounting to a “paycheck” from NBC. And of course he made plenty of money in business, although no boss was handing him a paycheck.
However, when Trump was young and learning the business from his father – who was a real estate developer – his father insisted he learn the business from the ground up. That meant working at a number of positions such as this:
He and his brothers also as boys were trained by dad in the business. So they would sweep out basements, collect coins from the coin-operated laundry machines in the apartment buildings. Sometimes do little repairs. And when they got a little older, dad would have them collect rents. Because he expected them to all go into the business with him.
I once read a biography of Trump that said much the same thing, and that Trump raised his own children the same way, learning the business from the ground up. And this Chicago Tribune article from 1989 – written back when the press was still relatively kind to him; title “Trump: the people’s billionaire” – says this:
Indeed, Trump came off much the better on that broadcast [the Phil Donahue show]. ”The audience loved me.” Hundreds of viewers wrote him. I was so embarrassed by Phil Donahue`s treatment of you . . . It`s unfortunate that jealousy makes people behave so badly . . . I will never watch him again. . . .
”He`s the people`s billionaire,” says Ivana Trump, not without pride.
”You have no idea. Middle-class Americans adore Donald, and I don`t know why.
”They shouldn`t,” she says. ”They should resent him. He`s young and wealthy and he flaunts it.”
”Yeah, I find I get along better with the construction workers and the cab drivers,” Trump agrees. ”The people who count in the world. Working people respect the fact that I built this company by myself. People like Donahue, they don`t dig it. They`d like it for themselves.”
Trump has been remarkably consistent about that sort of thing.
[ADDENDUM: It’s now being alleged that McDonald’s made an offer to Harris for a similar photo op, but they never received an answer.]
The best part was when one of the people in the drive thru said something like ‘thanks for standing up for us ordinary people’ and Trump’s immediate response was ‘you’re not ordinary, you’re not ordinary’.
And he said it so matter of factly that it clearly wasn’t some politician like response.
That sums up his appeal to a lot of people.
Shawn Fain, who had to admit on TV that even though the UAW was endorsing a Democrat (Biden at the time), most of the rank and file of the union, i.e., actual auto workers, were voting for Donald Trump.
He seems to think we’d forget about that.
Nope.
Mitchell Strand
Same thing, more or less, happened in Flint when Reagan was elected. One union leader said the vote was just about crime and national security, implying the union voters weren’t actually serious about the Real Issues.
As to “one of us”, the more exclusive the US can be made to seem, the easier it is to gin up resentment against the not-us.
But it’s not likely the UAW members went from high school direct to the “shop”. NcDonalds might have been part of their history, if not something similar.
Soooooo, Trump is a fuking TROLL!?!
I’ll add that to my growing list of reasons not to vote for him – thanks for the info, neo!
Fain is destroying his autoworkers in the sprint toward evs
Trump didn’t get tallow back as the fry-oil, so . . .
FAIL!
I have been a construction worker most of my life. Can tell many, certainly not all around be these last 2 presidential terms are more in favor of Trump than Biden or Harris and that includes union workers around me. It could be a connection of building or construction workers know if no one build buildings a lot of people won’t have jobs.
And it was I thought straight away a perfect trolling on Harris, and she has yet to prove her claim or when it would have happened.
In many states the price of staples have forced mcdonalds to close
Not to mention the inordinate minimum wage
She is trolling us pretending shes a competent human being
The difference in comments between the Harris supporters and the Trump supporters reflects the attitudes of the groups. The Harris people complain that Trump at McDonald’s is inauthentic because it clashes with Trump’s class identification (billionaire old white guy), while the Trump supporters find Trump’s appearance to be authentic because it shows his personality as an individual.
IOW, the media comments say more about the commenter than they do about Trump.
Karmi:
“The whole thing was a humorous troll of Kamala” means the McDonald’s stint was a joke, a tease – not that Trump himself is a troll.
But of course, you already know that.
neo – yeah, with that ‘Classic Troll‘ Trump now has me planning on voting against Harris—not for him, but against Harris…
I’m not Trump by any means, but one problem I had consistently during my tenure is that I got along so much better with the HVAC guys and plumbers from Physical Plant who came to help with issues in my lab, than I did with the faculty. 95% of the faculty I found to be pretentious assholes. And of course, they’re all Democrats/leftists.
My best friend from my time there is our department secretary who I still keep in close contact. She and I would spend hours discussing the vagaries of raising two daughters.
A quick look at Shawn Fain’s bio suggests he’s quite sincere in his beliefs and has the background to back it up: born in Kokomo, the grandson of two UAW members, originally an electrician by trade; firey populist rhetoric (“billionaires shouldn’t exist!”) Whatever one thinks of his policy views, he seems very genuine and passionate.
And therein lies the supreme irony. Fain is an anachronism; it ain’t 1984, Shawn; and Kanala ain’t no Walter Mondale. I wonder if he ever considers what a useful idiot he is for the Democrat Party. Does he ever consider that were he not the head of a large, powerful union, Kamala and all of those billionaires who proper up would harbor nothing but contemporary for him (as they do for the vast majority of ordinary UAW members)?
One has to wonder what was going through Kamala’s head as Fain spoke: “aw, good boy, Shawn. You’ve shown your loyalty. Now be a good little populisrmt and stand in the corner.”
A week ago Victor Davis Hanson said Harris was in a doom loop. Her campaign was losing ground and she had to do something, but the more she did, the worse things got.
My take is things are coming at her campaign more quickly than they can handle. With only two weeks to go they are not going to put Kamala, like Humpty-Dumpty, back together again.
100% with you on the beef tallow, sdferr. Worst branding mistake since “New Coke.”
“during my tenure is that I got along so much better with the HVAC guys and plumbers from Physical Plant who came to help with issues in my lab, than I did with the faculty. 95% of the faculty I found to be pretentious assholes.” physicsguy
Anyone who’s ever had the AC go down during a hot summer or had their toilet back up for more than a day has had a firm lesson in just how important are those trades. Whereas, faculty live in a world disconnected from physical reality.
“pre·ten·tious: adjective
attempting to impress by affecting greater importance, talent, culture, etc., than is actually possessed.”
“Most ‘scientists’ are bottle washers and button sorters.”
Robert A. Heinlein
Trump is brilliant, better than any political strategist I know of, at finding odd, often detriment-seeming things to focus on that end up playing to his favor.
When he spoke of Harris’ race on stage with three women journalists at the NABJ convention I cringed. To me it seemed foolish to enter into that area of discussion and his phrasing was inartful. Yet, for weeks afterward I saw clips of black Americans discussing the issue, and most agreeing with Trump that Harris used her Indian heritage when it was advantageous. This has happened more times with Trump and my opinion than I can remember. I’ll think, “why is he accusing her of not working at McDonalds?!” It’s such a minor point and it could backfire in his face. Then it becomes very important, culturally, to a lot of people.
We know most political consultants and politicians are out of touch with everyday Americans. It amazes me how often Trump comes up with very clever ways to engage and appeal to them. And our elites hate everyday Americans so they hate Trump.
GB
I don’t think I was a bottle washer.
I have about 20 papers mainly in PhysRev A. I didn’t break any startling new ground as my area was high energy ion- molecule collisions. I consider my greatest accomplishment to be the over 100 undegrad students I trained in my lab who learned what experimental physics was all about. I took great satisfaction in taking them on as sophomores then by the time they were seniors were running the lab themselves and training the new kids. Basically, being 3rd year grad students as senior undergrads. Many of those papers has them as primary authors.
78 and working for the first time in a McDonalds. Probably happening a lot due the the unchecked inflation the Harris administration set off.
If Donald Trump wins the election in 15 days, as I believe he will, it may well be this stunt that won it for him.
https://nypost.com/2024/10/21/opinion/trumps-genius-mcdonalds-stunt-will-fry-kamala-at-the-ballot-box/
_____________________________________
Hey, Piers Morgan agrees with me!
Kamala is talking about doing a similar photo op at Five Guys. Seriously. How brain dead do you have to be to not see the inevitable memes if that happens. Such as: Kamala did a shift with Five Guys, then went to the burger joint. Oh, and Kami… every lame reason you give for not voting for Trump just shows how little you care about saving this country. You’re either braindead or evil.
You know that when Trump was a young man he no doubt had many a lunch at the “Roach Coach” along with the tradesmen who worked on the family buildings. I mean, how could he have avoided it?
If you do real estate in the NYC area, you’ve got to learn how to deal with people from the high to the low. If not, you’re not gonna make it.
Karmi:
Both Trump’s gig at McDonalds and Tim Walz’s pheasant-hunting photo-op were campaign gimmicks. The difference is that Trump went to McDonalds and was himself. He wasn’t pretending to be someone he wasn’t. Tim Walz was.
So was Kamala when she claimed to have worked at McDonalds. It was fake. The whole Harris / Walz campaign is fake. That’s the difference.
Neo wrote (in 2015)
[Trump]’s somehow made himself immune to being criticized for anything he says.
Those were the days!
Dax:
Yes, I noticed that too.
I seem to recall that, right at the beginning, the press wanted to build him up because they thought if the GOP nominated him he was sure to lose. They wanted to encourage his nomination, but after that happened they planned to start to destroy him. Also, at the very beginning he was considered good for ratings and not really a threat.
Things must be looking very dark at Kamala HQ. The should have ignored this. Instead they’re looking like fools trying to tear it down.
@ Gordon — They seem to have conjured up a massive Streisand Effect.
I’ve binge-read most of the posts at Red State just for the fun of seeing the Regime melt down, which has only kept the stupidity of her remarks at the top of the news cycle.
Her unsubstantiated claims could have just drifted into the general stream of lies and exaggerations that all politicians indulge in, had she “read the room” and dropped them, but she kept pushing them in her speeches.
(I see a lot of resonance with John Kerry and the Swift Boat Veterans, who always knew he was lying about his military record, but let it lay until he tried to gaslight the country as a presidential candidate with his “ready to serve” schtick – not unlike Tim Walz.)
The lack of verification grows stronger and stronger against the attempts to justify her claims (all the NYT has is the word of her campaign staff and an unnamed friend).
Most pundits/commenters bring up the lack of W-2 stubs, tax records (returns can be discarded after 5 years), co-workers or customers, etc.
I think the most telling clue is this from a RedState comment:
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/08/29/it-sure-looks-like-kamala-harris-made-up-her-tale-of-working-at-mcdonalds-n2178666#comment-6538331720
I don’t recall seeing either of them say yea or nay about this suddenly-important part of her resume.
And several former McDonald’s employees point out that, when they were there, no one “worked the fries” exclusively, as she implied. I don’t know about that, but the one fast-food place I worked in did separate the front (take orders, pull drinks, distribute the food) from the back (cook the burgers and the fries, and the rest of the menu).
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/08/29/it-sure-looks-like-kamala-harris-made-up-her-tale-of-working-at-mcdonalds-n2178666
One commenter says, well, maybe she had it right:
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/08/29/it-sure-looks-like-kamala-harris-made-up-her-tale-of-working-at-mcdonalds-n2178666#comment-6538337485
But another puts a “Babylon Bee” spin on the story:
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2024/08/29/it-sure-looks-like-kamala-harris-made-up-her-tale-of-working-at-mcdonalds-n2178666#comment-6538333857
A few more items about the Democrats’ pearl-clutching:
https://redstate.com/bradslager/2024/10/21/trump-serving-fries-at-mcdonalds-has-the-press-wanting-to-speak-to-the-manager-and-were-loving-it-n2180859
In a different venue, Trump shows again that he is at home in more than one working-class environment.
Given the demographics of the barbers and the barbered, he is really going to set off alarm bells for the Democrats with this “stunt” — and all he had to do was make an appointment and show up, he didn’t cut anybody’s hair.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/10/21/trump-visits-barbershop-in-bronx-n2180868
Good details at the link.
They liked his answers.
Speaking of demographics: the group photo of the McDonald’s crew he worked with are a Diversity Officer’s dream, but no one seems to mention that.
YoungHegalian
Thread winner. I’m from Jersey and have followed Trump for 40 years. You cannot be aloof in the Big Apple real estate scene.
Until Trump came along, the main qualification for running President was the ability to wear a nice suit while looking bland. No more. Absent the black and guilty white vote, I would have loved to see a witless jerk like Obama go up against Trump and try to trade barbs with him.
“Indeed, Trump came off much the better on that broadcast [the Phil Donahue show]. ” — Chicago Tribune
• When Donahue died in August a blogger I read posted the 1987 interview ^^ that was referenced in the 1989 Chicago Tribune article.
^^ = see link below
• Was struck by how hostile Donahue was, and by his use of the same – poorly reasoned – talking points that are still used today by people who often describe themselves as liberals/ progressives.
• Was also struck by how well Trump countered Donahue’ points by using reality/ common sense-based points – which seemed to appeal to much of the audience – and by how Trump’ positions then, aligned with his philosophies/ policies as President decades later.
https://youtu.be/RSb4CmeZd08
The Babylon Bee publishes another shocking discovery!
https://babylonbee.com/news/investigation-reveals-trumps-role-in-home-alone-2-was-staged
In my experience, people who resent the wealthy tend to be middle-class themselves, but look down on their peers in said class.