Donald Trump’s McDonald’s ‘shift’ proves another gold mine for political iconography

The former president has a canny and sometimes accidental knack for producing the most iconic pictures in presidential campaign history; his latest visit to McDonald’s didn’t disappoint.

Donald Trump serves up fries at Maccas.

There’s one contest at least that Donald Trump has won hands down, even if he loses the presidential contest on November 5. He’s delivered the most iconic series of photographs in US presidential campaign history, indeed in any presidential campaign, probably ever, anywhere.

The former president tried his hand at making French fries and serving drive-through ‘customers’ at a McDonald’s on the outskirts of Philadelphia on Sunday (Monday AEDT), producing a deluge of hilarious, memorable and certainly iconic photographs that instantly went viral on social media.

The outing was meant to, somewhat comically given his own background, bolster his image as a ‘man of the people’, and remind voters of his claim that Kamala Harris never worked at McDonald’s.

The Vice President has claimed that she worked at McDonald’s in the San Francisco Bay area over a summer when she was a student in 1983, which she uses to bolster her “I’m from a middle-class background” spiel.

Donald Trump works the drive-through line at McDonald’s. Picture: Getty Images via AFP.

“I’ve now worked at McDonald’s for 15 minutes more than Kamala,” the president told the throng of reporters through the drive-through service window.

“Thank you for taking a bullet for us,” one vetted customer – the event was staged, and naturally teeming with security and media – told the president. The local McDonald’s owner had posted a note on the store saying it was closed until 4pm local time to accommodate Trump’s visit.

The former president pointedly posted in a picture later with seven McDonald’s staff under a sign that read “Did you know 1 in 8 Americans have worked at McDonald’s?”.

Regardless of whether Trump or Harris is right about her McDonald’s stint (neither has been able to produce evidence to support or refute the claim), the event was surely a campaign win, overshadowing Kamala Harris’s day of campaigning visiting churches in Georgia.

Perhaps Trump, still in his trademark red tie inside his McDonald’s approved apron, waving good bye to customers, will prove most enduring.

Trump pictured waving from McDonald’s drive-through window.

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Not all of these iconic pictures are deliberate. The latest set of images come after Trump’s July brush with death at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, produced the remarkable images of a defiant Trump, fist raised, with a bloodied face, moments after a bullet grazed his ear.

And don’t forget the mug shot, that emerged in August last year, after Trump checked in to Fulton County jail following his indictment by the local district attorney Fani Willis (a case that has all but collapsed since). Both images adorn Trump campaign paraphernalia and have no doubt underpinned millions of dollars of donations.

Donald Trump works behind the counter making French fries during a visit to McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania. Picture: Getty Images.

Only a week ago the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, jumped into the air with joy only a few metres from Trump. In August Trump and Robert F Kennedy, scion of the famous Democrat family, shook hands and embraced on stage against a backdrop of fireworks at one of Trump’s Arizona rallies, after the former independent presidential candidate bowed out of the race and backed Trump.

This isn’t a new part of Trump’s style. As president, the picture of Trump at the 2018 G7 meeting, sitting with his arms folded looking into the distance as an exasperated-looking Angela Merkel, then German chancellor, stood opposite him, glowering at Trump, with her hands face down on a table, must be one of the all time great political photographs. A year later Trump shook hands with Kim Jong-un in the Korean peninsula’s demilitarised zone.

Some of these imagines aren’t necessarily flattering, such as when Trump briefly looked at the eclipse from a White House balcony in 2017.

Trump’s supporters love creating AI-generated images of the former president, as the saviour of cats and ducks following the Springfield, Ohio Haitian immigration controversy, as a participant at the D-Day landing or one of the US Found Fathers.

Real life has proved almost as good. Who knows what photographic gifts the next few weeks will bring?