Trump gives America a taste of the big cheese

In the first century AD, the poet Juvenal complained that his fellow Romans had traded their democratic rights for “bread and circuses”. It’s time to add beef to the menu. On Sunday more than 4,000 spectators and half a dozen meatheads will gather in a makeshift coliseum on the White House lawn for an ultimate fighting championship (UFC) bout to honour Don Caesar’s 80th birthday. The only thing Trump loves more than raw combat is the hungry roar of his fans.

Much has been made of the brutal symbolism of the brawl, which will nominally commemorate the 250th anniversary of US independence. As Rory Smith wrote in The Observer last Sunday, wrestling blurs reality in ways that have “informed Trump’s assault on politics”. But in a historical sense, it’s a very American affair. The 45th president is taking a page out of the book of his favourite predecessor, the grandfather of American populism, Andrew Jackson.

On 22 February 1837, to commemorate the birth of George Washington, President Jackson opened the doors of the White House and invited the public to enjoy a 1,400lb block of cheese. The giant cheddar wheel was a gift from Thomas S Meacham, a small-town dairy farmer with grand ambitions, and had been stinking up the vestibule for two years. The odour was allegedly so strong it caused “dandies and lackadaisical ladies” to faint on Pennsylvania Avenue. At the appointed hour, an estimated 10,000 people, armed with knives, rushed into the building and devoured the cheddar in two hours. According to some accounts, windows were smashed, furniture was broken and the carpet became slippery with cheese.

Jackson didn’t stick around long, but he was already on his way out. He left his vice president and successor Martin Van Buren to greet the crowds – and to clean up the mess. The whole ground floor of the mansion had to be refurbished before the Van Burens moved in that spring. (Jackson left the economy similarly in disarray.) Still, some observers thought “the big cheese” was a success, proof that Jackson was “the people’s president”. Plus, it dominated the headlines. “Nothing else was talked about at Washington that day,” Benjamin Perley Poore later recalled. “Even the scandal about the wife of the president’s secretary of war was forgotten in the tumultuous jubilation of that great occasion.”

That particular scandal involved an extramarital affair, but Trump has a few scandals of his own he must wish could be swept under the rug. Epstein, Iran, crypto, voter suppression… his administration is a stinking smorgasbord. UFC might divert some public attention, though the news cycle moves somewhat faster than it did in 1837.

There are plenty of other comparisons with Jackson that Trump would probably welcome. It’s not without reason that Maga’s big cheese keeps a portrait of his predecessor beside his desk in the Oval Office. Both men made a fortune by speculating in real estate. Trump’s fight with the Federal Reserve over interest rates recalls Jackson’s war with the National Bank. In 1832, the supreme court ruled that historical treaties entitled the Cherokee to their ancestral homelands; Jackson defied the order and forced 60,000 people on a death march to western reservations, known as the “Trail of Tears”. Similarly, Trump has called for the impeachment of judges who have ruled against his deportation orders – and in some cases ICE has deported them anyway. Like Jackson, Trump uses populist rhetoric to justify unchecked executive power.

Trump’s love of Jackson may be one reason he shot down a proposal to replace the image of the slave-owning president on the $20 bill with a portrait of the abolitionist Harriet Tubman. She would have been the first woman and first person of colour represented on US currency. Instead, Trump hopes to get himself on a new $250 bill as early as this summer (he is a person the colour of red leicester). Federal law prohibits any living person from being depicted on banknotes, but the president is hoping, like Jackson, that the rules don’t apply to him.

Of course, there are differences between Jackson, a war hero, and the man who sought a medical deferment from the Vietnam draft due to bone spurs. Unlike the cheese party in 1837, not everyone will be allowed into UFC 250. VIP packages reportedly run to $1.5m. Most fans will have to enjoy the carnage on television, where it will be broadcast live by CBS, thanks to the network’s new Trump-friendly owner, David Ellison. For the lucky few to snag seats, there will be a free concessions stand. It has not yet been announced if Trump steaks will be served – or if there will be cheese.

Illustration by The Granger Collection/Alamy