October 21, 2024 - 9:15pm
From behind the counter at McDonald’s, Donald Trump put into stark contrast the tension between MAGA populism and MAHA populism. MAHA, short for Make America Healthy Again, is a slogan adopted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr as he campaigns on behalf of the Republican candidate.
There’s no question Trump’s trip to McDonald’s served his campaign well, despite the ravings of Keith Olbermann. Viral posts highlighting the resemblance between Trump’s campaign stop and an old Andy Warhol quote help explain why. “The President has so much good publicity potential that hasn’t been exploited,” Warhol wrote decades ago. “He should just sit down one day and make a list of all the things that people are embarrassed to do that they shouldn’t be embarrassed to do, and then do them all on television.”
This is the economic populism of MAGA at its most effective. Populists on the Left, though, are familiar critics of the Golden Arches. The chain underpays workers and pushes toxins on the working class, they say, disproportionately harming black Americans and preying on the poor.
RFK Jr himself deployed this criticism back in 2020 when he posted a quotation from an article published in Truthout. “Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, and the larger food and beverage industry have already seen to the enactment of at least a dozen laws preempting local public health policies like soda taxes, product labeling and restrictions on junk food marketing to kids,” Kennedy quoted from the article. “This has allowed the industry to continue its racist marketing campaigns, target marketing to Black youth and other youth of color. Understanding these tactics is key to undoing and preventing further proliferation of the industry’s preemption push.”
Republicans, especially those with deep ties to corporate America, long rebuked these criticisms as undermining the agency of poor Americans, who can make their own decisions about what to eat, where to work, and how to spend their budget. Does it make any sense for the populist Right to celebrate Trump’s embrace of a company that long fought the minimum wage and violates just about every principle held dear by the high-profile MAHA wing of the movement? MAHA campaigns directly against “Big Food” and it’s hard to get bigger than McDonald’s.
The Wall Street Journal probed this ostensible conflict earlier this month. “It’s not a marketing thing. Trump has bought into it,” Joe Grogan, who worked in Trump’s White House (and not to be confused with podcaster Joe Rogan), told the paper. Kennedy adviser Calley Means agreed, saying: “It’s not about lecturing Americans to eat healthy. It’s about not having completely co-opted institutions provide standards on health and food.”
I asked one high-profile player in MAGA circles, a longtime GOP policy aide, about whether Republicans would — or could — actually fold the MAHA agenda into serious legislative efforts in the White House and on Capitol Hill. Mentioning the food industry’s argument that regulating certain toxins is Government overreach, the person said: “Unfortunately, Republicans are very susceptible to it.”
Debates about whether MAHA is MAGA will surely rage in the months ahead, whatever happens in November. But perhaps a more instructive question is whether MAGA is really a part of the GOP any longer.
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SubscribeThe likelihood is that China will absorb/invade Taiwan sometime in the next ten years and that the US will accept it as a fait sccomplt.
I believe that Trump’s trying to shift the balance of power away from multipolarity to a dual consensus between China and the US – cutting Russia out of the picture entirely, raiding its resources and reducing it to a stub of its former imperial grandeur. Note that after demanding a ridiculous amount of Ukraine’s natural resources (and if anyone took that seriously, ditto Canada and Greenland being annexed to the US, I have some rocking horse faeces to show you), Russia leapt forward eagerly and offered their rare earth minerals to Trump? Putin has destroyed Russia: its manpower is significantly reduced (they’ve been deploying medics to the frontline, for heaven’s sake, still using that Tsar Alexander I habit of throwing wave after wave of whom they see as expendable bodies); its economy, off a war footing, in tatters; its people miserable and betrayed; its allies subdued or withdrawing; its goods sanctioned; its imperial dreams crushed. Whom can Russia turn to – the global south? Yes, of course, they orchestrate coups and military operations to shore up allegiance to Moscow; but China is heavily embedding itself around the world, its global supply chain without a single weak link. All these posturing speeches from Trump, Rubio, Musk et al seem like the opening gambit of a massive deal to be made – and China is on the ascent, despite economic turbulence. Just my opinion, naturally, but I think the Cold War is finally drawing to a close.
Amazing how many people actually want war with China and/or Russia. You should all go talk to some combat veterans before you agitate for something you don’t really understand.
I would much rather see the three of them sitting, drinking tea and talking for as long as they want. Pretty soon they’ll start talking about women or golf or whatever, and forget about all this war nonsense.
The perspective from which an article is written is not only significant but also deeply misleading. This piece frames the U.S. as negotiating from a position of strength over China, when in reality, the opposite is true. China is supplying critical components for the very weapons the U.S. is sending to Ukraine while simultaneously providing weapon parts to Russia. In effect, China has assumed the role the U.S. once held—serving as a key supplier in a major conflict.
The U.S. does not need to end the war in Ukraine because it wants to; it must do so because it has no choice. The country is increasingly dependent on Chinese manufacturing, while China continues to support both sides of the conflict. As a result, the U.S. finds itself in the paradoxical position of fueling China’s economy while depleting its own resources for a war of questionable strategic value.
Adding insult to injury, the notion that China’s economy is ‘stagnant’ is laughable. The assumption that sanctions against select Chinese entities would cripple their economy is based on wishful thinking rather than reality. The evidence clearly tells a different story.
A nuanced understanding of global power dynamics is essential, especially when mainstream narratives fail to capture the shifting balance of influence.
Of course Trump and Xi want to sort out Ukraine asap. Trump wants the USA to make money from their surrender, and China want to ratchet down from opposition to occupying an independent sovereign nation (as indeed does Trump). Both of them want to be pals with Putin. Dictators together with similar aims – never mind the actual people, they are just disposable pawns to money and power for the old men.
Why just China? India, Indonesia, Brazil, UAE, Saudi Arabia- in fact most of the non Western world has long called for an end to the war. Higher food and fuel prices affect all.
Only Neo Cons and MIC fattened lobbies who don’t care for the hardships of everyday life; and whose slush money profits increase with war have called for its continuance.
“Only Neo Cons and MIC fattened lobbies who don’t care for the hardships of everyday life; and whose slush money profits increase with war have called for its continuance.”
Also dumb European leaders who, having dug themselves into a hole with ‘whatever it takes’ commitments to Zelensky now have no idea how to stop digging (let alone get themselves out of said hole).
Interesting to think of the China angle to the Ukraine war. Ukraine, Russia, the US, the EU, the UK, NATO, China, etc. Lots of variables to consider all interrelated in complex ways.
A war like this one does affect the rest of the world. We in the US should be careful not to treat other countries as adversaries unless we are at war with them. We gain nothing by standing on ideology rather than pragmatism.
Speaking of China, I wonder how the sale of TikTok is going. Donald Trump put in place a 75-day stay. Half that time has gone, but nothing seems to be happening.
One things for sure, these are not the boring times of Joe Biden. TikTok may have stopped ticking, but there are plenty of other bombs on a short fuse that need to be defused. Exciting times.