Kevin Williamson of National Review Online addresses the recent hubbub involving President Trump and fast food.
To the extent that the United States has a self-conscious proletariat, that proletariat is Republican.
This manifests itself in funny ways. On Monday, President Trump welcomed the Clemson Tigers, this year’s college-football champions, to the White House. With the government partially shut down, the usual White House hospitality was not on the table, and so the Trump team improved in a very Trump way: with a buffet of fast food from McDonald’s, Burger King, and Domino’s. The most normal thing about Donald J. Trump — the most American thing — is probably his taste for fast food. The man likes his KFC. This scandalizes the sort of people who today belong to what in some quarters is still known as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor party. Rebecca Jennings, writing in Vox, sniffed that it was “a strange choice, particularly for an event held in the 140-seat State Dining Room.” Perhaps Bresca was all booked up. The usual progressive complaints were made: The fast food was “disrespectful,” “classist,” and — heavens! — “racist.” Jennings quotes a Trump critic arguing that “a Big Mac served on a silver platter is probably the best metaphor for Trump’s presidency that I can think of.” (Somebody should tell him about that golden toilet up the street from Trump’s place, at the Guggenheim.) The Clemson quarterback, for his part, judged the spread “awesome.”
The reaction to those Big Macs says more about the difference between the parties than would a thousand white papers on marginal tax rates. The Democrats are bothered by the fact that Trump broke out the good china for such an unelevated meal. The bounder!