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This was a brilliant publicity stunt by the Trump team, and the unhinged reaction from Redditors proves why.
As I mentioned last week, Republican candidates need to "hack the media" in order to get coverage. This is a great example. Trump comes across really well in this appearance and amplifying it can only help his campaign. If, instead, he gave a speech to talk about entitlement reform or some other boring shit, he would have gotten almost no coverage (and the coverage he did get would be purely negative).
Most elections really do come down to who is the more likeable person. Trump is in his element here and seems like a genuinely nice guy as he hands out bags of greasy food.
The people who are seething that this stunt is fake, on the other hand, come off as really dumb. Trump has been the victim of two assassination attempts. Do you think the Secret Service is going to let randoms through the drive through? Next, they'll tell us that pro wresting is also fake.
And finally there's also the added benefit that Kamala Harris claims to have worked at McDonald's but is probably lying about it.
Of course, most people have already made up their minds. But when the sole plank of the Harris campaign is that Trump is a monster, these humanizing events really undermine the narrative. Trump is now up to 62.5% on Polymarket, the highest since Biden left the race.
My suspicion is that Harris did work ad McDs, but it was in high school in Montreal. Her campaign doesn't really want to draw attention to her childhood outside the US, so they are being evasive.
I could still ping any of my co-workers at fast food joints and get them to corroborate that I was there, and if I ran from office they would come out of the proverbial woodwork (both good and bad on that front, perhaps). I think the fact they can't find one person who remembers working with her pretty damning.
Snopes tried their best to prove this true and still failed.
I don't think it happened.
To be fair, I would also ignore any media organ asking for comment from me on something long ago. In 2022 one reached out about an old college roommate who was running for office, and I sent the email straight to the trash.
I don't think McDonald's headquarters would respond about a private employment matter, and I'm not even sure it would have employment records from almost half a century ago.
Wouldn't the Harris campaign (who were contacted by Snopes) be highly motivated to provide some evidence for this if it were true? They couldn't find one childhood friend who said 'yeah we worked at Mickey D's together'? This has (at least for the next couple of days until the next cycle) blown up to be front and center in the presidential race.
I agree that the Harris campaign would have more motivation than anyone else. I just think this is assuming malice when incompetence is more than sufficient. Campaigns are extremely crazy internally (it's really hard to convey just how crazy they get unless you've been on one), with unclear lines of responsibility and a giant workload that you'll never get fully through. Even if they have Harris' lifetime tax records on hand (they should if they're available, but they might not be), there's no particular reason to think some intern or junior staffer would have an easy line to pass them on to Snopes. And even if they did, the expected benefit of convincing a Snopes reader that Harris worked at McDonald's might be outweighed by other considerations (giving away unrelated information that could provide avenues of attack, or just in setting a precedent).
Have you worked in a big campaign? I think it would be fun and enlightening if you shared your experiences on the thread!
All I know comes from West Wing and I have a feeling that the reality is way more regarded than the typical mass media depiction.
Democratic Senate campaign, prominent at the time but losing, and I was lowest level paid staffer. Also a mayoral campaign for a major city but minor candidate.
It is indeed very regarded, but my personal experiences were dominated by 1) having a giant crush on the press secretary I worked under, 2) pretending to be the candidate to call major donors' offices, and then transferring to him if his secretary said they were available, repeat. Also, going to a strip club where every stripper was 50+ after a major victory. At one point we had a freakout over baking soda being sent in the mail (accompanied by an abortion letter).
The only real insight I have is that any conspiracy theory requiring that Democratic candidates and staffers be hyper competent ideologues is wildly off-base.
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