So, I noted this tweet a couple of days ago, but forgot about it:
Feeding RFK, Jr. McDonalds and making him pose for a photo is a power move on Trump’s part. The photo was posted after the following headline had appeared in the NYT: R.F.K. Jr. Scorns Trump’s Fast Food Habit: ‘Really, Like, Bad’ and ‘Poison’.
Here’s the opening paragraph:
What happens when a 78-year-old, Diet Coke-drinking, McDonald’s-consuming president-elect buddies up with an alternative medicine aficionado like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? He gets publicly chided for his eating habits.
Oh, no, my road-kill-loving friend! In Trump’s America, Trump chides you!
This reminds me of this photo of Trump and Romney (although the Romney one is high art given Mitt’s expression):
Whether it is pure instinct or fully calculated, Trump will use his power to put you in your place if you want to be in his good graces, even if just a little.
The tweet above connects to the one from Newt Gingrich that I saw yesterday:
This is just pure gaslighting. So, yes, as in the photo above, Trump is indulging in fast food, as he was in this photo:
But, please note, he is eating his quintessential fast food in a private jet. You know, like the normal people.
In Gingrich’s corner is the fact that Trump likes fast food and watches a lot of TV. I would also note that his suits look like he buys them off the rack.
But while it is true he shares those traits with a lot of people, may I note that he lives at a resort, owns multiple homes, flies private jets everywhere, and golfs at golf courses (plural) that he owns.
I am not going to say that Trump doesn’t have a skill set that allows him to relate to certain mass audiences. I likewise suppose that his fast food habits are relatable to many.
Gingrich lays out a quasi-argument (it is mostly assertions) here: The Trump-American Culture vs. the Elite Culture.
I think he touches on some vague legitimate points, although the framing he is missing is one that has been oft-commented upon (and therefore not the unique insight he proclaims it to be): Trump is a populist. One of the magic tricks that successful populists pull off is that they are elites who do a good job of making some segment of the mass public think that they are either one of them or, at least, understand them in ways other elites don’t.
An important element of Trump’s appeal is that his golden decor and reality star turn on The Apprentice gives the masses the idea of wealth and business acumen essential to his brand.
From the piece:
The left’s contempt for sports is even greater than its contempt for McDonald’s. Yet, the market for sports among normal Americans is enormous.
Given the overwhelming popularity of sports in America, this strikes me as an utterly false statement. He does go on to mention wrestling, which I will admit to personally holding in general contempt (which was true, by the way, when I reliably voted Republican), I barely think of it as a sport. I even would guess that most WWE fans lean GOP (same with NASCAR). But just the other day I heard Ezra Klain (noted right-winger!) note his affection for wrestling.
Then there’s this.
Golf is also a constant in President Trump’s life. There are 45 million Americans who golf and an estimated 40 percent of all Americans (135 million) read about it or watch it on TV.
I will confess that if I had to code golf, as a general matter, on the left-right spectrum, I would code it on the right. This is simply because golf is an expensive sport associated with the educated elite, which in the past tended to vote Republican (I mean, “Country Club Republican” is a thing). It is also coded white (and in the past, Christian, as Jews need not apply).
Of course, Harris won college-educated and those with advanced degrees, so I expect a lot of golfers were Harris voters (I might go play 18 this afternoon, in fact). May I note that golf did not seem especially relevant in this election? At a bare minimum, golf is not the Big Mac of sports.
Then there’s this:
Football, and especially the NFL, are enormous draws on television. Sunday Night Football has averaged more than 20 million viewers every Sunday for the last six weeks. There was a classic irony in Saturday Night Live (audience about 5.6 million) giving Vice President Kamala Harris enough coverage that NBC felt constrained to give the same amount of time to President Trump on Sunday Night Football (20 million plus viewers).
The conservative pro-sports culture outdrew the liberal comedy show by nearly 4:1. That is a pretty good yardstick for the relative appeal of the Trump competitive worldview and the shrinking base of the leftwing worldview.
This is just silly. Of course, SNF outdrew SNL. NFL football is the biggest draw on television these days. That that had anything whatsoever to do with politics is absurd. Indeed, a simple googling (it is just so much work!) provides what I figured was the case, NFL fandom is bipartisan.
Via a survey last year:
But all of this just reminds me of what a poor-quality thinker the former Speaker is.
Even if a lot of voters think that Trump is the kind of guy who they would like to have a beer with, joke’s on them, because he doesn’t drink! And how un-American is that?
