President Donald Trump is normally referred to on this blog as the “National Disgrace.” But not in this article. No, not this time.
Because the picture above has given me the most joy since Anthony “I’m Not Trying to Suck My Own Cock” Scaramucci. In fact, that picture has given me more joy than The Mooch. So much joy in fact, I’m dedicating a blog post to it.
“I think we’re going to serve McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, with some pizza,” Trump said of the food he would serve to the Clemson Tigers football players, who had just won the college championship (American football). “I really mean it. It will be interesting. And I would think that’s their favorite food. So we’ll see what happens.”
When I first saw the picture, I knew I wanted to do a blog post. But then I read The Pure American Banality of Donald Trump’s White House Fast-Food Banquet (New Yorker), and the article already said most of the beautiful points I wanted to make … and better than I could say them. Let’s go over some of those.
On Monday night, the photos began to roll out of Trump grinning behind a mahogany dining table arranged with silver trays bearing stacked boxes of Filet-o-Fishes and Quarter Pounders, and McNuggets, and a few dozen of something in paper wrappers from Wendy’s, and piles of anonymous-looking salads, and a couple of pizzas, and Burger King fries that some hapless aides had decanted into paper cups bearing the Presidential seal …
[Sandwiches arranged] on their silver platters (with sauces sorted by type and piled high in silver gravy boats) and the gilded candelabra [lighted, then came] the photo shoot. Trump, centered beneath a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, flinging his arms out behind this table of quick-serve abundance, in a gesture that’s equal parts ownership and invitation …
A gilded hall filled with as many fried and griddled patties as money can buy, more Filet-o-Fishes and Quarter Pounders than one body could possibly consume, the teetering towers a quantifiable testament to his Presidential power. “We went out and we ordered American fast food, paid for by me,” Trump boasted to the reporters gathered before the fast-food spread, grinning his fast-food grin beneath a brooding portrait of Abraham Lincoln, painted in 1869, by George Peter Alexander Healy, and praised by Lincoln’s eldest son as the greatest likeness ever captured of the man. “Lots of hamburgers, lots of pizza. Three hundred hamburgers. Many, many French fries.”
That is what I wanted to say, but better than I could say it. That is what I admire about the picture. I could just stare at it for minutes at a time. And smile.
But there’s a glaring problem with the New Yorker piece. This bit here:
Trump’s bulk order, on the other hand, was a dinner fighting against the odds. One imagines those poor sandwiches steaming limply inside their cardboard boxes on the drive to the White House … There is a particular awfulness to McDonald’s or Burger King once it’s gone cold. By the time America’s greatest collegiate football players arrived, in their navy blazers and Sunday shoes, to pick up porcelain plates and work their way through this cardboard buffet, the French fries would have grown cold and mealy, the burger buns soggy, the precise half slice of American cheese on each Filet-o-Fish sandwich hardened to a tough, flavorless rectangle of yellow.
There lies an uncomfortable amount of speculation in that paragraph. And I personally, despite what I may think of the Trump administration, have ample confidence that the White House kitchen staff can manage to serve the food hot.
While I suggest you read the whole article, that part about the food being cold ruined it for me a little. But maybe I can build on what they did right and make it better.
Another angle from the article covers Trump’s well-documented love of fast food.
[According to his former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski,] “on Trump Force One there were four major food groups: McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, pizza, and Diet Coke,” and that his boss’s go-to McDonald’s order was two Big Macs, two Filet-o-Fishes, and a chocolate milkshake.
I can understand how some Americans would be embarrassed by a president who eats like that, but everybody has a vice. I myself see fast food as cheap junk … but you can’t deny it tastes good.
I’d be all over that spread. And it wouldn’t take the White House’s State Dining Room to get me to come. The local Knights of Columbus would be good enough.
I’d be like this dude if I were there. That would be my first round. Depending on how quickly I could put that away (speed would be my deliberate strategy), there may be a return trip to the buffet.
Here is the picture again. For reference, for enjoyment. Here is a link to a high-res, 2000px image file for those of you who, like me, want to make it their Cover Image on Facebook.
The picture is almost perfect. The silver trays, the mahogany table, the gilded candlesticks, Lincoln watching from above. The president, ever the showman, wears a bright red power tie, a symbol of his virility. The only imperfection, which I would give my left one to time-travel and teleport so I could tell whoever did it to pull his head out of his ass, are the SALADS in the spread.
What snowflake is responsible for that? Think there are vegetarians on the championship football team? Get a life, wimp. And now I can’t stop seeing them, the salads, front and center, ruining what would otherwise be a perfect photo.
How about a bucket of Buffalo Wings or Jalapeño Poppers? Or dual troughs of ketchup and ranch dressing? But freakin SALADS!
To whoever ordered that, this is what happened to the salads, dipshit.
Memes
The episode produced some funny memes. Above is Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid after their victory to qualify for the AFC championship game, which they lost to New England Patriots. No fast food buffet for them.
“Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean. — Mark 7:18-20
This McNugget is my body. This strawberry shake is my blood. (hat tip Zac)
That’s all I got. You know me, I’m not on the Trump Train. But sometimes you need to disconnect from the debate and have a laugh. Someday Trump will be out of office. But we will still have that picture.
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