The side of Trump we don’t talk about

Serving fries at an establishment he has long cherished, Trump’s love of McDonald's is well-documented. Equally famous is his love-hate relationship with Coca-Cola, or more specifically, Diet Coke. He even claims to have made Coke change the ingredients of its flagship product. We’ve all seen his dancing, but have you seen his playlist? From R.E.M. to Johnny Cash, Frank Sinatra, and Metallica, he certainly has eclectic taste. He’s a man who likes the unsophisticated as much as he likes the sophisticated; Trump is the Schrödinger’s cat of affluence: both uber-wealthy and profusely working-class at the same time.

Trump has always been masterful at dominating political conversation. It’s hard to discuss the subject without talking, or at least thinking, about the current US President, which can be frustrating for those who are, or always have been, sick of him. Those people probably think this article does nothing but reinforce this phenomenon, but we need to ask how Trump has accomplished such a feat. It’s more than just presidential prominence – it’s something new, an intrinsic ability to permeate and command nearly every debate or discussion.

He’s controversial, yes, but there are plenty of controversial people we don’t think about on a day-to-day basis. He’s successful, too, but success isn’t synonymous with infamy. There are plenty of extremely successful politicians and public figures who aren’t such vigorous staples of general chit-chat, or featured at all. Both of these factors certainly help, but this isn’t the side of Trump to which the headline refers.

In his book War, journalist Bob Woodward recalls an interview he had with Trump in 1989. The New York businessman referred to his reliance on a generalised chain of bottom-up knowledge; “cab drivers”, he cited as an example. “I go to cities and say ‘What do you think of this?’ That’s how I bought Mar-a-Lago”. In a discussion with a cab driver, Trump asked him: “What’s hot in Florida? What’s the greatest house in Palm Beach?”. “Oh, the greatest house is Mar-a-Lago”, the driver said, before taking Trump to the property he would later purchase for $7 million. Referring to himself in the typical Trumpian third-person fashion, he recalled how people joke “that Trump will speak with anybody”.

Trump even says that the likes of construction workers and cab drivers are the people he gets along best with, despite their obvious class differences. What’s telling about this interview is that it occurred some 26 years before he announced he was running for President back in 2015. This wasn’t political meandering, but a reflection of his genuine

interest in the views of the working class. He calls these sorts of his discussions his “poll”, how he measures value not solely in terms of assets, upsides, and risks, but the views of the everyman.

Whether you love or loathe Trump, compared to Clinton, Biden, and Harris, he would be the comparatively more convincing candidate for voters simply because he is so genuine to himself, no matter how risible you may find him to be.

Few individuals born into as much wealth, influence, and power as Trump were would even bat an eye at the opinions of America’s nine-to-fivers. Yet Trump is attuned with these people, comfortable around them. Is it surprising that working American people find him so enduring? There is no manufactured love over the chasm of economic inequality, but a sort of mutual respect. In a political epoch where it is increasingly complex for candidates for office to resonate with voters, Trump consistently nails it because, for him, it’s real, or at the very least, it feels real.

That’s not to say that his attachment to the working classes isn’t for self-serving purposes; of course, it is. He admits it’s a data-gathering enterprise, but many a politician engages in theatrics to win over blue-collar workers; Trump just does it with far more authenticity and conviction. You could likely counter this thesis by pointing to his 45% approval rating, or his inability to win the popular vote in 2016, or the 75 million Americans who didn’t vote for Trump in 2024. Of course, there are mitigating factors. Swathes of the US electorate would simply never vote Republican, and vice versa for the Democrats, and to refer to Trump as a loaded candidate (especially for the 2024 election) would be a monumental understatement. If we enacted a thought experiment to test the extent of Trump’s sincere likability, it would likely go something like this:

Imagine either the 2016, 2020, or 2024 elections. Now imagine, for some reason, the

political history of the party’s candidates (and the parties themselves) was forgotten. Each election would be fought solely on the personalities of the candidates and how effectively they can communicate their dreams for America and its people, without incumbency or any such burdens/advantages. In such elections, subtracting particularly the extremely divisive history of Trump’s policy agenda and rhetoric, but that of every candidate all the same, it is hard to say Trump (in isolation) wouldn’t have won all three. Whether you love or loathe Trump, compared to Clinton, Biden, and Harris, he would be the comparatively more convincing candidate for voters simply because he is so genuine to himself, no matter how risible you may find him to be.

The side of Trump we don’t talk about is his authenticity, which is why his claims of fighting for the working class, or his everyday antics (Diet Coke, McDonald's, and playlist blasting), don’t come across as posturing but as a genuine reflection of the man. It makes him a tangible person, not just a conceptual politician, straddling a line so many try to, but none can achieve quite with the same effectiveness.

Much has been made of Trump’s ability to be both a stalwart of the establishment, being

born into wealth and influence, and simultaneously the anti-establishment candidate. Trump always admitted to his privilege, in his condescending way, using it as a means of suggesting he, as an insider, was the only one who could bring elitism and high society down.

A key moment in Trump’s 2016 campaign occurred during a televised debate when he was pressed on his use of tax loopholes and admitted to cheating the tax system. Instead of allowing the focus to be on his own fiscal immorality, he flips the script against his more politically experienced opponent, Hillary Clinton, pressing her on why she has never worked to fix it. He concludes that she benefits from weak tax codes and so will never change them, insisting that those who cheat the system often fund her or her parties’ campaign(s). He owns his elite status, carefully straddling honesty and framing of argument to land powerfully with voters through a narrative of distinct and unparalleled self-awareness.

It makes him a tangible person, not just a conceptual politician, straddling a line so many try to, but none can achieve quite with the same effectiveness.

This intentional campaign strategy is challenging to pursue. No other politician comes to mind who could pull it off. So how does Trump do it? It’s clear he has experience and a comfortable familiarity with being both one thing and another at the same time. He’s controversial, divisive, wealthy, and powerful, but most importantly, when it comes to considering Trump’s political image, it’s built on his undeniably genuine character. Whether that character evokes a queasy or comfortable feeling is for you to decide; however, what’s undeniable is that the feeling is strikingly real.

By Cianan Sheekey

Image: Doug Mills/The New York Times via AP, Pool