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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

> At the end of October, there was the viral, and controversial, Trump campaign stop, where he “worked” for 30 minutes at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. Then, this week, there was the news that Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was caught in a McDonald’s—also, coincidentally, in Pennsylvania—because he was spotted by a group of morning regulars and employees

Didn't Kamala Harris also work at McDonalds https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/01/kamala-harris-on-working-at-...? Pretty sure Trump's stunt was because of that. But I guess it's fair to assume everyone who followed that story knows the context. Or perhaps the author is more sympathetic to one candidate and would rather not air unproven claims: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-mcdonalds-college/

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It felt really odd that the author neglected to mention the reason the stunt should have fallen flat was that he was using it to mock Harris for actually having worked at McDonalds, not cosplaying at it.

That's the part that seemed odd for an article trying to put McD in the spotlight of the recent events. It just read as completely random "look, how crazy he is, he decided out of the blue to stage a McD cosplay foto session".

The stunt worked because there's some controversy over the ability to verify Harris worked at a McDonald's as she stated. Trump very publicly worked there for a day to sort of rub it in. He was trolling her, and it appears to have worked.

I frankly consider far more likely that Harris have never worked in a McDonalds. All her campaing was full of dumb astro-turfing, this would just fit the general bs theme.

> I frankly consider far more likely that Harris have never worked in a McDonalds.

In retrospect, sadly, I think you're right. Snopes has it as "unproven" [1]. But it would explain the reason for a cosplay with that theme. That would be an interesting angle to discuss. Someone even bothered to photoshop Harris' face on an unrelated McDonald's employee picture from back in the day. But it was a fake! Was it one of her supporters, or a Trump supporter doing it. It ended up hurting her more than helping, in the end it seems.

> “So what are MAGA die-hards and faux-centrist Trump apologists talking about when they praise his drive-through stint as ‘amazing and hilarious’?”

The article seems to deliberately miss the whole parody part. That would make a juicy piece of cultural commentary, yet that part is missing. Sometimes, what is not talked about is a lot more interesting than what is talked about.

[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-mcdonalds-college/

Trump was an actual campaign stop photo op... Harris didn't do a McD photo op. So not clear on your point.

Also Trump rode in a garbage truck around the same time. Was he one upping Harris? Or just trying to appeal to the working class? Probably the latter...

> So not clear on your point.

I just meant that an article, claiming to go for a deep dive on how McDonald's is part of the new American zeitgeist, mentions one presidential candidate, and the CEO murderer, but doesn't mention the other presidential candidate.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/01/kamala-harris-on-working-at-... is just from a few months ago.

> “It was not a small job,” Harris told Ruhle. “There are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to...raise families and pay rent.”

Just seemed like an odd omission, that's all.

Not really. Free Press is only pretending to be journalism. In an article defending JK Rowling, they describe people who are upset with her views on transgender rights as "maniacs, who are then flattered by cowards". It's a partisan rag.

This is the context of that quote, which doesn't state what you're claiming:

In recent years, she has become a figure of some controversy. Not for any real reason, but because we live in an era where things that are self-evidently true are denied by maniacs who are then flattered by cowards.

Also, this was in a piece from one of their columnists. Opinions are to be expected.

(https://www.thefp.com/p/things-worth-remembering-jk-rowling)

The garbage-truck photo op was Trump's a followup to his campaign calling Puerto Rico "garbage", and in particular to Biden calling that behavior "garbage".

This comment illustrates pretty well how much of a game of telephone american political culture is.

The person whispering in my ear said that a roast comedian at a trump rally told a joke where Puerto Rico was called an island of garbage. I wonder how many levels it had to go to become "[trumps] campaign calling Puerto Rico "garbage"".

Your chronology does not fit.

I always wondered about why the truth that Kamala Harris worked at McDonald’s seemed almost less authentic than the sort of cosplay of Trump working there.

And it makes me wonder. I myself worked a blue collar job for a few years, I was in catering, and I worked - never in fast food but at a few chains.

But it was never something I had to do or something I was looking down the long barrel of. It certainly I think taught me something about what that life was like. But I can see why some people may interpret that as actually worse.

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