Democrats are less afflicted by this malady than Republicans. Thus, smart guys like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama become president and, in the latter two cases, serve two terms. Even a smart woman like Hillary Clinton managed to win the popular vote in 2016, though this achievement was denied the smart woman Kamala Harris in 2024. (In both instances, what likely did them in was not that they were smart, but that they were women.)
Also true (and quite funny) was Obama’s wisecrack October 24 about Trump gilding everything in sight:
Fact check: Trump does indeed focus excessively on elaborate refurbishments in the White House and elsewhere. Maggie Haberman of The New York Times estimates that these pursuits take up 70 percent of his time. The ballroom is indeed bigger than the White House, and Trump really did pave over the Rose Garden and slap a helipad on the South Lawn. And yes, there is “gold everywhere.”
The Trump administration’s counterattack is to portray any slight to The Cheesecake Factory as a slight to the masses. “For you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president,” Trump replied. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (net worth: $600 million) immediately went out to a Cheesecake Factory two blocks from the Treasury building, ordered a $22.95 French Dip cheeseburger with grilled onions and sriracha mayo, and said: “I had a great meal. I always have a great meal, and I would tell the Martha’s Vineyard set to give it a try.”
Oh, please. Twenty-three bucks for a cheeseburger is more than three times what you’ll pay at McDonald’s for a Big Mac or a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, and twice what you’ll pay for a much better burger at Five Guys. My editor interjects that the best burger in the DC area is the “Jon’s Classic” at Jon’s Joint, which sells for a mere $8.95.
For the record, Obama’s tiny dig at The Cheesecake Factory—mostly he was mocking Trump’s mania for gilding things—referred neither to the clientele nor to the food but rather to the restaurant’s deliberately over-the-top décor, which CNN this week described as “theatrical” and “at once Egyptian and European, with a touch of Las Vegas flair.” Add gilding, and a Cheesecake Factory would indeed look like Trump’s penthouse apartment in Trump Tower, the aesthetic Trump is bent on recreating inside the White House and all over Washington.
If the curse of patrimonial capitalism was once ameliorated somewhat by the blessing of refined taste, Trump is living proof that we can no longer count on that. Trump’s taste in architecture and design is execrable, rendering it all the more poignant that this is the realm where Trump feels most confident. “I am a very aesthetic person,” Trump explained last year, sounding exactly like Dustin Huffman boasting repeatedly in Rain Man, “I’m an excellent driver.” Trump is, as Spy magazine observed decades ago, a short-fingered vulgarian, and it’s telling that when Spy levelled this memorable accusation, Trump raged against the “short-fingered” part but didn’t seem to register the “vulgarian” part. In most respects a deeply insecure man—hence the frantic boastfulness, especially about his intelligence—Trump is at his least defensive and most serene when describing his strengths as a builder. That’s because he feels unaccountably confident about them.
If this be the cultural elite, then it’s somewhere between 59 and 65 percent of the entire country, which doesn’t strike me as very elite at all. It’s not just Ivy League toffs like me who can’t stand what Trump is doing to the capital’s monuments. It’s the majority.
The good news is that the working class appears to be catching on. On Election Day Trump may discover that, for once, voters care less about punishing elitist snobbery than about getting the president’s tiny fingers out of their pockets.
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