Trump’s Cheesecake Factory Dissent
· The Atlantic
The Republican Party, with one notable exception, has settled on a populist closing message: Barack Obama’s weekend joke that the president has “got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory” represents a grave insult to middle-class Americans. Alas, the sole Republican who appears unable to cooperate with this message is Donald Trump.
In reality, Obama’s crack was mainly aimed at the gaudy aesthetic shared by Trump and the former Iraqi dictator. And even if the joke had not mentioned Saddam, it is hardly a swipe at the Cheesecake Factory to suggest that its campy decor, while perfectly suitable as a backdrop for a family munching on a plate of fried macaroni and cheese, is an inappropriate sensibility for the Oval Office. And even if Obama had committed a genuine gaffe, it seems odd for Republicans to try to make the election about an opponent who is (1) not on the ballot and (2) the most popular living politician in America.
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But when your party has presided over rising inflation and a failed war of choice, the messaging options aren’t great. And this pseudo-scandal does have the benefit of helping Republicans change the subject from Trump’s obsession with gilding the White House to Democratic elitism. So various GOP mouthpieces have come forward to express their indignation on behalf of the salt-of-the-earth Cheesecake Factory diners that Obama had so viciously slandered.
“It goes exactly to why Democrats lost the middle class, why they lost blue-collar voters. Because it’s kind of a guns-and-religion clinging kind of comment, and it turns a lot of people in this country off,” explained Fox News’ Martha MacCallum. “To all of those diners in Cleveland, Grand Rapids, and beyond, here’s Mr. Obama’s message: How déclassé,” editorialized The Wall Street Journal. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, not to be outdone, appeared in front of a Cheesecake Factory and told reporters, “I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try,” as if Obama had criticized the restaurant’s food.
[Read: Leave the Cheesecake Factory out of this]
This posturing is part of a familiar ritual in American politics. Our candidate was born in a humble log cabin and has the backing of the common people, whereas your candidate is the son of privilege and represents the aristocracy. Because he is instinctively elitist, however, Trump has always struggled with the populist script.
After being elected as the leader of what pundits depicted as a populist uprising, he would sometimes bristle at the notion that his enemies constituted an elite. “Why are they elite?” he said during his first term. “I have a much better apartment than they do. I’m smarter than they are. I’m richer than they are. I became president, and they didn’t.” He would tell his supporters at rallies, “You are the elite. They’re not the elite.”
Trump seems to have an especially difficult time feigning populism when the target is Black. Asked by a reporter at the White House gaggle about Obama’s gibe, Trump attacked Obama as low-class and dumb. “He doesn’t notice dirt and filth that hadn’t been cleaned, where the walls hadn’t been cleaned for years,” Trump said. “We have to explain that to Obama because he doesn’t understand it, because he’s not a smart guy.” Attacking Obama as an out-of-touch coastal elitist, rather than a slum-dweller who dirtied up a pristine home, is a concept that Trump’s mind is apparently too racist to process.
Nor could Trump bring himself to pretend to think that the humble White House would be lucky to have decor as luxurious and dignified as the inside of a Cheesecake Factory, the veritable temple of the middle class. Instead, he delivered a 500-word monologue about the palatial renovations he had overseen.
[Read: The rush-job presidency]
“I fixed it with the finest artisans in the world,” he said. “I’ve reskinned the building beautifully with the highest, most talented people. Anywhere in the world, you’re not going to find more talent.” If Trump’s allies were trying to dispel the impression that the president was overly focused on improving his own residence at the expense of his other duties, Trump appeared eager to confirm it. Indeed, he emphasized the great time and expense the work had consumed.
At a rally last night, Trump returned to Obama’s Cheesecake slander, while characteristically proceeding to substantiate the gist of it. “He was very critical of me, because I spend time,” he told the crowd. He then spent several minutes walking through the renovations in tedious detail—confirming, rather than rebutting, the impression that he is obsessed with the project. He repeated his boast that he employed “the best artisans you’ve ever seen.”
And he complained that the building he inherited contained materials that looked as if they came from a store that sold home items to hardworking, ordinary Americans. “We took tile that was broken, that was—I mean, I don’t want to say from Home Depot, but it does come from a box, and it’s not for the White House.”
Not only did Trump once again fail to assail Obama as a snob and pose as the champion of the Cheesecake proletariat, but he went in the opposite direction. He dismissed Obama as such a rube that he would settle for appointing the White House with tile that could have come from a store as low-class as Home Depot.