Yesterday, convicted felon and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump attempted to prove that he, a disgraced billionaire, can relate to the average American. He put on an apron, walked into the back of a McDonald’s in Feasterville, Pennsylvania, and made fries. Then, he served them to drive-thru customers, smiling and waving as they received their sacks of food.
It’s an experience a significant number of Americans are familiar with: According to McDonald’s, one in eight Americans has worked at one of its restaurants. But Trump didn’t actually work in any meaningful way. The entire restaurant was closed to normal business during the press opportunity; the drive-thru customers were screened beforehand; and crucially, none of them actually ordered any food — they just accepted bags of whatever Trump gave them.
No one actually expects Trump, or any presidential nominee, to work a full shift at a fast food chain. Events like these are always stunts, meant to convey that the politician in question respects the people doing the work they’re mimicking, and takes their concerns seriously. “[Making fries is] an easy job to do once, and it’s not an easy job to do over and over again,” author Adam Chandler told Marisa Kabas in her newsletter the Handbasket. “So for a photo op, it kind of is a perfect thing.”
However, Trump has uniquely failed at the should-be-a-slam-dunk drive-thru photo-op, because he didn’t actually do even the smallest amount of work. The reason fast food work deserves respect is because it’s hard. Keeping track of orders, making sure everything is packaged correctly and safely, and crucially, dealing with unpredictable customers who are sometimes disrespectful to you takes attention, speed and skill. Making a single batch of fries with a McDonald’s employee explaining every step to you along the way, and then handing a bag no one ordered to someone who is only there to support you does not actually mirror the experience of working at McDonald’s.
What it does mirror is Trump’s entire campaign ethos. Some would say the point of being a politician is having to deal with all kinds of people, and work to meet their needs. But Trump’s McDonald’s visit shows he has no interest in considering people who don’t already share his beliefs. We know from his last presidency that he does not care much about representing Americans who disagree with him, and as he runs for office again he is actively threatening to deport millions of people who he just doesn’t think should be here. That he didn’t even take an actual McDonald’s order or speak to an unvetted customer only reiterates his disinterest in anyone who doesn’t support his vision of himself.
Really, the whole thing was meant to be a gotcha for Vice President Kamala Harris, who Trump claims is lying about having worked at McDonald’s as a student. He, of course, has no evidence for his claims, but joked “I’ve now worked for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” as if he ever deigned to work in food service in his life. He also dodged a question from a reporter about whether he would support raising the minimum wage, which would be a material recognition of fast food workers’ labor. In Pennsylvania, the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and the average McDonald’s worker in the state makes $13.22 an hour, which is not enough to afford a one-bedroom rental anywhere in the state.
“When Trump feels desperate, all he knows how to do is lie. He can’t understand what it’s like to have a summer job because he was handed millions on a silver platter, only to blow it,” Harris spokesman Ian Sams told the Boston Herald. Working in fast food service isn’t a prerequisite for respecting workers or believing they deserve a living wage and safe working conditions. But Trump’s attempt to relate to the working class only shows how unwilling he is to actually empathize.
