Part 149: The McDonaldization of America – Donald Trump and Media Devastation

Published January 6, 2025.

Jan 07, 2025

My first artificial intelligence image for publication using Open Art AI of Donald Trump sitting inside a McDonalds restaurant with ketchup smeared on the wall (BOOM!)

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By Zachary Ellison, Independent Journalist

Today is January 6, 2025, a long almost four years since perhaps the biggest insurrection in the United States of America since the Civil War of 1861-1865. So many have commented on this topic, and indeed Congress has conducted a full investigation generating many thousands of pages of documents, that you have to wonder about the journalistic value of even recognizing the events of January 6, 2021 less adding further fuel to the impending firestorm of media coverage, and the equally powerful repudiation of such information production. People don’t believe the news anymore is what people say, most certainly in regards to outlets on both left and right that form the crux of the mainstream media. No one posits anymore that there is a neutral media, or that even genuine perspective is possible. Most importantly in economic market terms, the advance of social media and artificial intelligence is threatening actual journalism to such an extent that indistinguishability that many are proclaiming the impending severe demise of the field itself.

To be fair, the critical role of news organizations such as local ones that focus on car crashes and bank robberies, clearly defined events without much disputation, even if suspects are uncertain persists. News, much less the writing of commentary is unlikely to totally wither away, but has the quality changed? First and foremost, our ability to effectively educate the public about matters of great importance has declined. We are dangerously veering toward a mindset of monopolization, with major publications owned by billionaires and even wire services such as Gannett and Reuters seeking to consolidate as was recently reported by Matt Pearce, a former Los Angeles Times journalist here on Substack to offer “bundle content.” The danger of such a large merger intended to rival the Associated Press (AP) is a continued devaluation of original reporting with Pearce characterizing it as the “McDonald’s of journalism.” Some people in fact really love McDonalds though, and the staple of American fast food remains profitable.

Donald Trump famously smeared ketchup on the walls of the White House, itself a highly consolidated market. Despite all the progress in the health foods market, McDonalds generated over the 12 months preceding last November a net income of $8.24 billion buoyed by investments from 60 different hedge funds according to a report in financial publication Insider Monkey by journalist Ali Ahmed. In the world of ChatGPT, the question of who ethics, much less the health of an incredibly digitized news marketplace remains fraught with danger. The recent death of Open AI whistleblower Suchir Balaji, the conditions around which are being disputed, with the family of the deceased 26-year old demanding investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Balaji was expected to testify regarding copyright violations and the idea that his firm, and AI in general, were “damaging the internet.” AI might as well be ketchup, or catsup!

The technology itself is not an end-solution, and even as it competes with people, it can’t replicate them fully. Much like the ketchup famously cast upon the walls of the White House by Donald Trump in December 2020 after his own Attorney General William Barr openly criticized his theory that he had in fact won the 2020 Presidential Election in the AP, the technology is part of a technological plate that we as a society is simply making pervasive, it’s even now in job descriptions widely. Personally, I’ve always doubted whether digital technology was mentally healthy, much less useful for the widespread distribution of mental health treatment much less news information, but here we are in a world of digital manipulation. There will always be people behind the technology and to a great degree this will always be about money, but what about credibility? That’s where we’re shooting ourselves in our own foot. As Matt Pearce writes, the emergence of “ghost newspapers,” a misnomer for wire-service dependent publication, means moreover that “Generative AI-powered digital sites are just a techy riff on the same concept.”

Like McDonalds plenty of people choose this concept, like the flood of decoy drones over Ukraine by the Russian military with only a few weaponized interspersed within the flood of fakery, this actually works. In overwhelming so-much of the news universe with what many people have unabashedly taken to calling “bullshit” isn’t so much as phony as it’s instead mass-produced. Playing to the hyperbolic nature of people is like a Big Mac playing to stomachs, and in the world of social media the drive-thru never ends even if it’s in fact harmful. Ultimately, the cheapening of our minds is a disservice, it favors repetition instead of origination. Unlike say my coverage with Ruth Roofless of homelessness policy in Los Angeles County, there’s no meeting room for independent observation, much less participatory investigation, instead news has now simply become the mere gathering of information, a few requests for comment for quotes without much critical evaluation. This isn’t ethical, but it’s a winning strategy for many.

Sadly, we’re progressing toward a society where all that matters is winning. As we slowly march toward the inauguration of Donald Trump and the planned departure of FBI Director Chris Wray, who didn’t have to leave, but apparently wanted to avoid a showdown with Trump unlike his predecessor Jim Comey. How this potential change to announced Trump-nominee Kash Patel ultimately impacts the functioning of the nation’s most powerful military, much less the planned installation of Pete Hegseth to the Pentagon represents an unparallel unique danger to a functioning security apparatus. Both Patel and Hegseth are deeply unqualified loyalists. The double-dipper terrorism attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas have highlighted not so much security failures in preventing suspect vehicles from accessing sensitive places as they have our continually evolving threat environment. Both attackers were military veterans, and not actually associated with organized groups, and yet they dominated national discourse which seemed to be the goal more than any specific damage to key individuals or infrastructure.

The extreme response of right-wing media to these events was both predictable, and like Trump’s proposed purchase of Greenland or invasion of Panama it got people talking. Famed Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano after watching four hours of Fox News coverage could only be left to write about the proverbial tilting windmill, “I don’t regret my decision to turn on Fox News on New Year’s Day, because it was a sobering, necessary reminder of the fetid information ecosystem that put Donald Trump in the White House, created a majority in both chambers of Congress and paints critics like me as the enemy.” Now that’s a sentence! As a recovering higher education administration professional, I watched as our classrooms at the esteemed, formerly top-25 University of Southern California (USC) made it through a bowl game for a chane, but also as learning itself has become highly politicized and conflictual. Classrooms should be apolitical, many will exclaim, but should they become uncritical, non-conversational?

USC escalated its battle with its own non-tenured faculty over the Winter Break who on December 10, 2024 filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to form a labor union (Case 31-RC-356388), and now appears to have lost at least round 1 to have the matter dismissed. The union movement in America by-and-large didn’t endorse Donald Trump, nor did so many other organizations such as the Veterans of Foreign Wars who openly criticized his commentary regarding Medal of Honor winners. Power is an elixir, so it should be no surprised that the leaders are in America, even supposedly enlightened one’s do the legal double-step. USC Provost Andrew Guzman in response to the popular effort at USC to gain protection from what many view as failed despotism, wrote that “faculty are different” arguing they have supervisory responsibilities, and moreover that the United Auto Workers (UAW) “expects to be paid” dues.

Donald Trump might be the most masterful organizer in America having a special talent for monopolizing conversation; he’s the ultimate boss personality. Last November, the President of the UAW, Shawn Fain said about Trump after his re-election “for us, this was never about party or personality.” Fain previously said in October, “Donald Trump is a billionaire who’s never worked a real job in his life” calling him a “scab.” Vice President Kamala Harris said similar about Trump and working in a McDonalds, so what did Trump do, he co-opted a McDonald’s for a day to work in it, which drew the following response from McDonald’s corporate leadership: “We are not red or blue – we are golden.” There’s no firewall for the press from politicization like there is for French fries from those who don’t want ketchup, never mind holding the salt. Trump bested the UAW and again broke through the so-called Democratic “blue wall” on the electoral map precisely because in a way he’s managed to separate himself from even Republicans.

Donald Trump’s business model for his properties was never about being like McDonalds, but rather about catering nominally to the highest-standard. Trumpism, indeed the idea of the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement itself has come to be associated with the idea of success. Fox News itself as at least formerly the leading platform for conservative opinion next to Forbes Magazine has continued its streak of record ratings as noted by Los Angeles Times columnist Gustavo Arellano, it’s “highest-rated cable network for the ninth consecutive year” adding that “too many Americans have decided that Fox News’ whine-world is reality and have voted into office fellow true believers.” Trump who led an irrational, and dangerously fervent campaign against the certification of the election of Joe Biden by Congress himself was certified today in Congress without a messianic MAGA hitch.

It’s often said that Americans lack media literacy, but Americans in fact are still pretty literate in general, but not even close to the top 25 countries in the world. According to the National Literacy Institute, we rank 36th with “on average, 79% of U.S. adults nationwide are literate in 2024,” but this is cautioned that “54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).” Most Americans even if they have a basic understanding of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, much less all 27 amendments in total wouldn’t be able to process the language. For this reason in part, most major newspapers aren’t written at a particularly high-grade-level of language intentionally. AP Style is the name of the game, and it’s designed to present information in brief, highly crisp language. AP Style is considered a job skill. I’ve even had editors in job interviews question me for why I don’t always choose to write in it, instead favoring longer-form style including extensive documentation. People tell me that many simply won’t read anything at length, and that’s truly a severe problem. Literacy overall is poor!

Education wasn’t an issue talked about in any length in American politics leading up to the election aside from questions related to discriminating against transgender students. Yes, the biggest problem we seem to have is what gender people are in terms of bathrooms and sports. Donald Trump exploited this issue to maximum design. It’s red meat, but American’s are meat eaters, and most still eat at McDonalds. Most are also excited about AI as a field, they believe not only is it cutting edge, but that it can overall reduce the cost of labor. Surprisingly to many, California has the “lowest adult literacy rate” at least in English. The so-called Golden State is predominated by immigrants, and Trump again mastered demagoguing on that issue, even to populations such as Latinos who you would seemingly think would be more liberal on such issues. The raging media debate about this ignores the conservative mindset of many such individuals, what Gustavo Arellano has defined as “rancho libertarianism” writing in his Substack essay on the topic: “The rancho libertarian knows Trump is a racist asshole — but they don’t care.” Trump didn’t just gain ground among Latino’s though, but also with African-Americans.

The other side of the illiteracy coin in California and beyond is systemic poverty, and despite African-Americans lacking wealth in America as a class. It’s not to say that Black Trump voters are illiterate. Despite pleas from former President Barack Obama to support Kamala Harris, calling him a “bumbling” billionaire “who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago” per an AP report. Newsweek noted that Trump won more Black voters than any Republican in 50 years, doing particularly well among males. Black male Trump supporters for example don’t just include Kanye West, but closer to home in Los Angeles the son of legendary African-American politico Mark Ridley-Thomas who was at the center of his convictions for bribery, fraud, and conspiracy Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, himself a former California State Representative until he resigned amidst a brewing sexual harassment scandal. The younger Ridley-Thomas for whom his father sought to solicit two graduate degree scholarships and a faculty job he wasn’t qualified for makes no secret of his support, and also no longer resides in California preferring Nevada and South Carolina.

The monopolization of America by Donald Trump isn’t so much the stuff of political real estate or even ideology as it’s a cultural success. By so thoroughly disparaging his opponents in lowering the state of political discourse with incessant name-calling and red herrings, he’s essentially managed to become the ultimate online troll. People love how he plays to their feelings because fear is re-assuring, much more than the idea of hope and change, and there’s a success in that. I’ve never once seen a vehicle convoy for Kamala Harris or Joe Biden, and there’s nothing more American feeling than motor vehicles, whether electric Tesla Cybertrucks or the increasingly old-fashioned Ford 150 Trucks (American gasoline cars are a technological rarity). The ability to systematically denigrate the media while also seizing the means of production including creating his own social media platform is impressive, and to date, traditional journalism media has failed to develop any counterbalance to this trend. There’s no liberal resurgence even seemingly possible with Democrats posed to lose a generational battle without even pushing back.

The traditional mainstay kitchen-table issues of America like healthcare and education are increasingly non-resonant. Rather it’s the idea of the economy being better under Trump that so many are prone to accept unquestionably. Wall Street is all in on Trump precisely because he’s anti-regulation and frankly doesn’t really care about human rights, much less liberal democracy abroad. This simply doesn’t suit the agenda of the rich and powerful in this country, and until the left, much less liberals figure out how to fight back in information warfare they’re going to lose, and the longer they lose, the more lawfare is going to become stacked against them. Turning the FBI into a mockery of itself just might be the final humiliation. Blaming the “the FBI for supposedly preferring diversity initiatives and investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection and conservatives over stopping terrorist attacks.” Actually running the FBI, much less the U.S. military effectively will be much harder. This year the U.S. Capitol was on extra lockdown, with the Chief of the U.S. Capitol Police declaring ironically, “We cannot be taken by surprise again.”

The idea of a the McDonaldization of society is nothing new. The term was coined by sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society (1993). According to Ritzer, what McDonalds offers is efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control. The widely hailed analysis can be transposed to the information economy as noted by South African librarian Tom Larney who writes about the idea of artificial knowledge production: “Instead, she or he has a task to interpret and anticipate even where the user doesn't and even where such a response naturally takes longer than assembling the informational equivalent of some combo meal.” In an ideally McDonaldization of society there are no surprises. Truthfully, few were surprised about what happened on January 6, 2021. In fact, an inflammatory rally was held beforehand after many years of violent agitation, and to no one’s true surprise it turned violent. You didn’t need a Presidential Medal of Freedom to know that it was going to be a democratic catastrophe, and a good investigative journalist should be able to not only out-smart, but also outspeak any form of AI around.

Link Wall Street declares war on the Associated Press

Link: Gannett and Reuters Launch Bundle Content Offering

Link: ‘Ketchup dripping down the wall’: 5 stunning moments from Cassidy Hutchinson’s Jan. 6 testimony

Link: Is McDonald’s Corporation (MCD) The Most Profitable Food Stock To Invest In?

Link: Family of OpenAI whistleblower Suchir Balaji demand FBI investigate death

Link: FBI Director Chris Wray to resign at end of Biden term, clearing way for Trump pick

Link: Column: What I learned from watching Fox News after the New Orleans terrorist attack

Link: Recent Union Solicitations: Frequently Asked Questions

Link: A message from UAW International President Shawn Fain

Link: President Fain Statement on Donald Trump’s Recent Remarks Disparaging American Autoworkers

Link: McDonald’s didn’t give Trump permission to serve fries. It didn’t need to

Link: Congress certifies Trump’s election win amid unprecedented security measures