A while back there was quite a bit of hubbub around the opening of the Obama Presidential Library. Its oft-lampooned brutalist style architecture, which has brought some folks mind of Imperial ships in Star Wars, also helped open up the discussion, nationally, about monuments and legacies of past presidents, and what kind of monument will best capture the man, the myth and walking marketing campaign Donald J. Trump.
Tradition says that every modern president gets a library, full of shelves of documents from that office-holder’s terms of service; climate-controlled archives and exhibits to display the legacy of the person.
But here’s the problem with that as it relates to President Trump: 1.) libraries are usually places of quiet contemplation, research and study and Trump has never inspired quiet. 2.) Donald Trump is anything but traditional, so why saddle him with a library?
Reading has never really been Trump’s brand, but hey, branding certainly has. Instead of a library full of shuffling schoolchildren learning about the finer points of MAGA, there should be a Donald J. Trump Presidential McDonald’s.
Just think of it this way: instead of visiting a space to soak in the president’s legacy that has all the excitement of a day at the DMV, visitors can leave with a better understanding of Trump and his administration, as well as a bag containing two Big Macs, a large order of French fries and a Diet Coke.
The exhibits practically craft themselves. F’rinstance, the Oval Office can be recreated with a working drive-thru window, and the Situation Room can become a playground for the little ones, with a Happy Meal serving station.
In the gift shop, visitors could choose from a plethora of Trump/McDonalds-themed merchandise, like commemorative bottles of ketchup emblazoned with the “Make America Great Again” logo. These bottles would be plastic, so they won’t break if, say, one is angry and decides to throw one at the wall.
Another merchandising opportunity here is laminated Big Mac wrappers with Trump speeches printed on one side. While critics might complain that such an edifice cheapens the dignity of the office, I say to thee: “Have you been paying attention the past few years?”.
President Trump has done almost as much for fast food as Jimmy Carter did for rock music. McDonalds might have been Trump’s lifelong favorite culinary preference in his civilian life, but as president, it has also become a political statement. While previous presidents hosted state dinners featuring meticulously prepared bougee cuisine from world-class chefs, Trump routinely serves heaping platters full of McDonalds sandwiches at White House events and reportedly consumes a meal consisting of two Big Macs and two Filet-o-Fish sandwiches on a daily basis. Even at state dinners when haute cuisine is put before the president, his aides make sure there are McDonalds burgers present as an alternative, according to presidential historian Michael Wolff.
Whether one sees such moments as when Trump presented the Clemson Tigers football team in 2019, amid the government shutdown, with a buffet of Big Macs and Quarter Pounders as refreshing, down-to-earth and authentic or spectacularly absurd depends largely on one’s cable news-fed political mindset.
However one views all the fast-food consumption in the White House, it is unmistakably Trump, and the architecture of such a post-presidency tribute should reflect that very authenticity. Some of the ridicule placed on the Obama structure mocks the perceived pretentiousness of it, and I’ve read it described as everything from an oversized concrete box to an expensive monument to the taste of the elites.
If we’re being fully honest here, nothing would provoke architecture critics like replacing sleek museum/gallery aesthetics with a gleaming McDonald’s, with 50-foot Golden Arches clearly visible from a good distance. Can you imagine the dedication ceremony of the Trump Presidential McDonald’s? Instead of a hoity-toity silk ribbon cutting, that event could feature a ceremonial lowering of a basket of fries: the first fresh fries cooked in the establishment, and the presidential seal could be replaced by a smiling bald eagle holding two Big Macs.
Each hour on the hour, a hologram of Trump could emerge to explain why the ice cream machine is working better than it ever has, and how that is clearly making America great again, and why people all over are saying that it is the greatest ice cream machine in the history of time.
Naturally, there would still be educational opportunities. The children could learn important lessons about modern politics by participating in interactive exhibits such as “Compose Your Own 2 a.m. Social Media Torrent of Rage Posts” and attendees could take part in a mock cable news show panel interview.
Another exhibit would challenge visitors to identify whether a quote originated from a presidential speech, a campaign rally or a late-night Truth Social post.
Most presidential libraries preserve papers, but Trump's would preserve the experience, and it would smell faintly of French fries, Big Mac sauce and permanent campaigning. Entire families could spend an afternoon learning about American politics before arguing over whether someone ordered enough Chicken Mc Nuggets. Most importantly, the monument would understand something that traditional presidential libraries often forget: monuments are storytelling devices. Some of our presidents are remembered through soaring rhetoric; others through military victories and some via sweeping legislative victories. Trump, for better or worse, mastered something entirely different. He transformed politics into an around-the-clock spectacle where branding often mattered as much as governing, where the image frequently eclipsed the institution, and a presidential McDonald's wouldn't diminish that legacy one whit. Instead, it would acknowledge it with a knowing grin.
While future historians and critics of Trump might object that replacing a library with a fast food restaurant trivializes history, they have to realize that history has had a sense of humor. The Romans erected triumphal arches, while medieval kings commissioned tapestries. Twenty-first century America could definitely stand to commemorate its most unconventional president with a fast-food emporium, the menu of which he loves more than anything else on this planet.
Chris Edwards is editor of the Tyler County Booster, a sister newspaper in the Polk County Publishing Group. He can be reached at cedwards@polkcountypublishing.com.
