Cheesecake Factory, tan suits, and the staying power of culture wars
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Summary
With less than a week until a potentially historic midterm election , the political discourse is being dominated not by war or seismic shifts in technology, but by the Cheesecake Factory . The big picture: Culture wars regularly swarm American political discussions, especially when the jibes are personal. Former President Obama's passing joke over the weekend about Cheesecake Factory decor did just that — by criticizing President Trump 's personal taste and style. "He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," Obama said, poking fun at the president's controversial White House renovations . Zoom in: John Murphy, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies political rhetoric, tells Axios that the first time he heard Obama's comment, he "really did think, 'this is going to go somewhere.'" That's both because of the messenger and the butt of the joke: Obama "can get under Trump's skin like no one else in the world can," he says. Obama knows all too well how seemingly trivial moments can blow up; in 2014, he wore a tan suit instead of a black one to discuss foreign policy, and years later his sartorial choices remain a political talking point. The tan suit has its own Wikipedia page , and still nets pop culture references . State of play: Days after Obama's quip, the news cycle and social media are still serving up the joke, and the White House posted "Lo-fi" beats accompanied by a cartoon image of Trump in front of a Cheesecake Factory. Conservative critics used the jab to paint Obama as elitist. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent , a multimillionaire, criticized Obama outside a Cheesecake Factory, saying he "had a great meal, and I would tell the Martha's Vineyard set to give it a try." Murphy notes that framing comes from a classic red v. blue playbook to paint Democrats as "elitist." "It's a conscious strategy, I think, on the part of conservative media to gin up culture-war arguments," he says. The other side: Trump's pushback, however, has centered less on the class divide seized by some members of conservative media — and more on his White House renovations. "We have to explain to Obama that the White House is a symbol of America," Trump told reporters Monday. He continued, "Guys like Obama don't see it ... he doesn't see filth. He doesn't see broken ornaments on a building," later adding, "for you to say it's a Cheesecake Factory, that just shows why you were a lousy president." The White House referred Axios to Trump's previous comments when asked for comment. The bottom line: The fight has also drawn in the restaurant chain itself: Rick McCormack, its former longtime vice president of design, lamented "the pettiness of politics" and told CNN he was disappointed to see the company caught in the dispute. Go deeper: How the Cheesecake Factory got dragged into a midterms food fight
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