Former President Donald Trump served McDonald’s French fries two days after the Wall Street Journal published a feature on the Republican nominee’s new crusade to “Make America Healthy Again.”
“Trump Adopts RFK Jr.’s War on Junk Food to Win Over His Fans,” the headline read.
Fast-forward to Sunday, when Trump greeted customers at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s drive-thru and passed out goodie-bags of the industry’s most iconically-addictive “junk food.”
Several online X users said the split images reflected an inherent contradiction between Trump’s endorsement of efforts promoting sound nutrition and his championship of the fast food menu.
The images of Trump, however, proudly parading as a presidential mascot of Ronald McDonald show why a Trump-led initiative to reinvigorate health and wellness holds potential to be far more successful than former First Lady Michelle Obama’s.
In 2010, the Obamas did what Democrats always do: recruit Hollywood talking heads to participate in elite-driven initiatives compromised by corporate actors. Michelle Obama’s signature program, “Let’s Move,” was launched as Americans were growing more aware of ever-expanding child waistlines. By 2009, nearly 17 percent of children aged 2-19 were obese, representing a striking increase from just 5 percent in 1971, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). But the Obamas left office with more than 19 percent of children in America obese.
Obama’s program was also run just as Americans were still reeling from the 2008 financial crisis and didn’t want to be lectured by the first lady and Ellen DeGeneres to stop eating French fries. In 2015, the first lady went on “The Ellen Show” and talked about how she teamed up with Beyonce and a whole bunch of other famous people to ask Americans to “#GiveMeFive.”
“We’re asking folks all across the country to give me five ways they’re leading a healthy life,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of celebrities involved,” such as Ryan Seacrest and Nick Jonas, and “even the astronauts on the International Space Shuttle.”
“We’re going to take over the White House Easter Egg Roll this year with a ‘Give Me Five’ dance,” Obama explained. “And actually, the ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ all-stars are coming to the Easter Egg Roll!”
The first lady then proceeded to dance with the host on daytime television. But did the White House really believe Americans antagonized by a depressed economy would suddenly change their eating habits because Obama was dancing on TV with a bunch of celebrities? Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio., explained in his 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy, why that message didn’t stand a chance, (emphasis ours):
Barack Obama strikes at the heart of our deepest insecurities. He is a good father while many of us aren’t. He wears suits to his job while we wear overalls, if we’re lucky enough to have a job at all. His wife tells us that we shouldn’t be feeding our children certain foods, and we hate her for it — not because we think she’s wrong but because we know she’s right.
Americans didn’t outright reject the virtues of healthy eating but were clearly alienated by the White House’s nanny state finger wagging as they worried how to pay their mortgages. Her campaign, meanwhile, refused to take on the corporate interests which laid the foundation for the nation’s health care crisis in the first place, leaving Obama’s good-intentioned crusade destined to fail.
Trump’s pit-stop through a Pennsylvania McDonald’s on Sunday captured an authenticity from the former president who can speak candidly about addiction on one hand and pass out hamburgers with fries on the other. Vice President Kamala Harris was forced to watch Trump capture the internet with perhaps one of the greatest examples of retail politics ever as she gets called out for her inability to even name the McDonald’s where she supposedly worked.
While Obama’s campaign was an out-of-touch Hollywood lecture circuit with Wall Street’s faux endorsement, Trump is still embracing calls for healthier lifestyles while respecting the occasional indulgence in the most iconic chain in the story of convenience food capitalism. With McDonald’s reputation as a staple of American bootstrap folklore, Harris has good reason to want voters to believe her almost-certainly fabricated tale of being a fast-food fry cook.
“The McDonald’s Corporation has become a powerful symbol of America’s service economy,” wrote food journalist Eric Schlosser in his 2001 bestseller, Fast Food Nation, when the company was “responsible for 90 percent of the country’s new jobs.” In fact, Schlosser reported more Americans have grown up more familiar with the restaurant chain’s signature golden arches as a symbol for McDonald’s than the Christian cross for Jesus Christ’s crucifixion.
“A hamburger and French fries became the quintessential American meal in the 1950s, thanks to the promotional efforts of the fast-food chains,” Schlosser added, allowing McDonald’s to cement the golden arches as emblems of American culture.
Would a Michelle Obama fry shift have been on brand for her healthy eating campaign? Probably not. And to be fair, Trump is making a point about his opponent two weeks before Election Day, even if another takeaway is that Americans who don’t drink or smoke can also work the fryer at McDonald’s when they’re nearing 80. But the primary difference between Trump and Obama is the approach. One thought dancing with celebrities on TV would end a national food addiction and the other appears willing to go after the food and pharmaceutical industries on Wall Street without the elitist finger wagging at Americans on Main Street.
And besides, as Dr. Shawn Baker highlighted on X, maybe effective regulation can pressure restaurant chains to reinvent America’s favorite convenience food into something healthier. Talk about making America great again.
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