McDonald Trump has his foes in panic mode

Serving fries at McDonald’s and poking fun at Kamala Harris’s claims to have worked there is just one of the many ways Donald Trump continues to connect with regular people and defy his delusional critics, writes Tim Blair.

Pre-election polls are shaping up nicely in the US. As a result, anti-Trumpers are becoming terrified of a possible Donald victory.

And when that crew panics, their biologically programmed self-defence mechanisms automatically deploy. In this way, leftists are kind of like certain species of apprehensive insects.

For example, education site ThoughtCo reports that “bombardier beetles famously spray predators with a mixture of chemicals and can do so with impressive force. The beetle stores the ingredients for this caustic compound separately in special abdominal chambers”.

Among humans, those toxin-filled “special abdominal chambers” are represented by left-wing activists and their media enablers.

Donald Trump serving fries at a McDonald’s drive-through.

“When threatened,” ThoughtCo further explains about the bombardier and its defensive double-goo payload, “it quickly mixes them together and shoots a jet of irritants in the direction of the perceived predator.”

Yep. That sounds pretty much the same as leftist reactions to “perceived predator” Donald Trump. But the irritants they’re shooting aren’t chemical. Or precisely targeted. For that matter, they’re not even real.

Rather, our frightened beetle people simply spray wild fantasies all over the place. Popular online leftist and failed state Democrat candidate Will Stancil recently did exactly that, posting an elaborate, fact-depleted re-imagining of Trump’s first term.

“The thing that so many people have forgotten is how they spent the entire Trump presidency on their last raw nerve,” Stancil wrote, “waiting for the horror of the day to descend.”

Hmm. They’ve probably forgotten those daily horrors because they never happened.

“The anxiety of having someone so morally, intellectually, and socially defective leading the country,” Stancil went on. “You couldn’t trust that the government would solve any problem.”

The Trump government did actually solve a problem or two, about which more in a moment. Stancil is still crying – and crying on behalf of his similarly-stricken fellow anti-Trump frightboys.

“There was no sense that smart, hard-working people were trying to keep dangerous stuff at bay. We were just on our own, hoping nothing truly disastrous happened.”

Most people of Stancil’s age – he’s almost 40 – have worked out that the US isn’t entirely ruled by a single elected entity. States have their own governments. Counties and cities can enforce their own regulations. Opponents of US federal law may be limited in their legislative options, but they are never “just on their own”.

“Next time it would be far, far, far worse,” Stancil warned, referring to a potential second Trump term. “There would be many fewer institutions checking him. He might actually end up launching nuclear weapons at Iran or invading Mexico, he might actually goad the Department of Justice into jailing his enemies.”

Trump recently ended up serving customers at a McDonald’s drive-through, in mocking response to Vice President Kamala Harris’s claim to have once been a McDonald’s staffer.

Or maybe a little more. As Harris put it earlier this year, in exactly these ill-chosen words: “I did fries. And then I did the cashier.”

Donald Trump at the McDonald’s frier in Feasterville-Trevose, in the swing state of Pennsylvania. Picture: Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool

Lucky bloke.

And then there’s the likes of Stancil, whose anti-Trump allies are legion, including in Australia. Recall that following the 2016 election, Mamamia founder Mia Freedman posted the Lifeline contact number – for fear that Aussies would top themselves rather than suffer a Trump presidency.

Other local commentators blamed Trump for the media’s self-generated meltdowns. But as a sometimes-correct columnist pointed out four years ago: “The emotional indulgences of hysterical leftists are not Trump’s fault. He isn’t responsible for the behaviour of the psychologically immature.”

Mentally intact Trump foes are at least capable of realising he isn’t all bad. The UK Spectator decried in January the ex-president’s “outlandish character and conduct”, “reprehensible” language and “many mad remarks”, but also accurately observed that “the American economy had thrived under his leadership … median household income hit a record high”.

As well, the Spectator wrote, “poverty rates for black and Hispanic Americans reached record lows, as did unemployment … (Trump) made a better effort to control the US’s borders than either his predecessor or successor did …

“He launched Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership which resulted in (Covid) vaccines being developed in only a few months … With hindsight his foreign policy record looks impressive … there were no major new conflicts.”

All from a journal you’d never describe as pro-Trump. If the 45th President becomes the 47th – still a big if – his enemies should put their special abdominal chambers on hold.