Trump Immortalizes “Let Them Eat Hamberders”

Trump Immortalizes “Let Them Eat Hamberders”

This reminded me of the immortalized quote “Let them eat cake”, incorrectly cited to Marie Antoinette, but maybe from other French Royalty.  It was a sarcastic statement, since in French “cake” was “brioche”, which is a butter and egg enriched roll, and more royal than bread.

I don’t spend my life making fun of Trump, since the issues I discuss with humor are really quite serious.  I also am nobody to make fun of misspellings. But I could not pass up the “juicy” comparison between the “cake” quote and Trump’s serving hamberders to the Championship Clemson football team, supposedly because of Trump’s own government shutdown.  Thank heaven he did not force frogs legs on them, as he did Mitt Romney.  Always clued to numbers, I note that Trump first said that he had served 300 hamberders, but then, as usual, exaggerated that to 1,000.  Trump really should have treated the Tigers with more respect, since they showed their respect for the Presidency by coming to the White House.   Many other athletes and celebrities would not go to Trump’s White House.

I remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger, the image of American fitness, got his start in politics by being the White House publicist for exercise and good eating under George H. W. Bush from 1990 to 1993.  Schwarzenegger is now one of the few Republicans with the guts to speak up about Trump’s destruction of … well, everything.  The Championship Clemson football players are the epitome of College athletes, great examples of fitness, but not allowed to stand up for healthy food, as they would have been in an Obama White House.

Fortunately, it appears that the SNAP program for food stamps for poor families for February has given the stamps out early, avoiding the shutdown for one month.  In Pennsylvania, for example, one of of eight are on food stamps, or 1.8 million.  But some unpaid or furloughed government workers are looking for food aid, or forgoing medicines.  

This is analogous to the famine before the French Revolution, where the “eat cake” sarcasm was relevant.  There are again demonstrations in France over a conservative gonvernance.  In the French Revolution case, the people were taxed for the wealthy excesses of the Ancien Regime, not unlike the Trump tax cut for the rich, including himself, his heirs, his Mar-a-Lago wealthy buddies, and clients at his gilded hotels and country clubs.  The cost of that tax cut until 2027 has now escalated from $1.5 trillion to $2.0 trillion.  

“Let us all now eat hamberders”.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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