Trump’s McDonald’s stunt turned out to be much worse than just cosplay

Does Donald Trump have any real skills? I’m talking about real talents or abilities that are somehow not dependent on demagogy or being born rich. This is a question I have often asked myself over the past eight years, and have yet to find a satisfactory answer. He is not an accounting genius or an architectural scientist. He has no aptitude for city planning or corporate management. In fact, he has nothing that he can point to as evidence that he himself is better suited for the job – any job! – than someone else, or that his undeniable success in life is something other than the inevitable result of a combination of inherited wealth and immoral ambitions.

Yet Donald Trump would have you believe that his success is based on some nebulous set of innate skills that elevate him above us mere mortals. He regularly claims to be an expert, superior to all experts, regardless of the subject. He boasts, belittles and exalts himself, even as he tries – clumsily – to convince voters that he is a regular guy just like them. “Forget about building your fortune by inheriting the family business and licensing your name—which, by the way, I also inherited,” he says, very verbosely. “I was a nobody who was working his way up from below, so I receive You, and why you should vote for me.” Laughably obvious dissonance aside, it somehow delivers a compelling enough message to the millions of people who have chosen to believe that Trump is both Superman and everyman: a Schrödinger candidate for the stupid and the gullible.

This brings us to Trump’s latest campaign stunt.