President Donald Trump's obsession with renovating the White House has turned into an unlikely political headache, with a Salon columnist arguing that his attempt to recast criticism of the makeover as another MAGA culture war is falling flat.

Former President Barack Obama, a Democrat who held the office for two terms from 2009 to 2017, gave Trump a taste of his own medicine by mocking the redecorated White House during a weekend campaign appearance in Ohio. In the viral roast, Obama said the gold-heavy makeover made the building look "like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," pairing the late Iraqi dictator with the US casual-dining chain that has become the episode's unlikely political symbol.

Trump responded by attacking Obama, then defended his decorating choices at a Mississippi rally. The president called the Cheesecake Factory a "successful company" and claimed the White House had been falling apart and had to be "clean, pristine, beautiful."

Salon senior politics writer Amanda Marcotte argued in a column that Trump's reaction reveals a problem with a strategy that once helped him connect with supporters: using culture wars as a litmus test of political loyalty is no longer having the same effect.

Her argument extends beyond the Oval Office, raising the question of whether the MAGA coalition, built around cultural identity, can still attract people living with higher costs for goods, rent, and bills.

Marcotte pointed to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, whose department manages federal finances, and who posed for photographs at a Cheesecake Factory in suburban Maryland on Monday in response to Obama's joke. She described the photo op as "the latest in a series of MAGA's long list of kitsch-related tantrums, which have seen them feign enthusiasm for middlebrow corporate products as evidence of their identity as 'real' Americans, unlike those snooty Democrats with their fancy mustards." To underscore her point, she also cited Bessent's $600 million net worth.

The episode recalled last year's backlash against Cracker Barrel's redesigned logo, when conservatives attacked the country-store-themed restaurant chain's effort to modernize its image and turned a branding decision into a wider argument about American traditions.

Marcotte wrote that the Cheesecake Factory appeals to a different demographic, one she described as a "younger, more modern audience that doesn't take itself seriously." Its sprawling international menu is part of the joke, she added, which also complicates MAGA's efforts to present the chain as a symbol of conservative tradition.

The columnist argued that the White House's gold-heavy decor symbolizes the widening gap between Trump's cultural priorities and voters' everyday concerns, particularly the cost of living. She acknowledged that Trump's eccentric taste appealed to supporters during the 2024 campaign, but said those preferences look different when his foreign and domestic policies negatively affect their lives.

Marcotte also referenced Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny's successful Super Bowl performance despite MAGA's backlash against a Spanish-language show on American television's biggest annual broadcast stage. "When the president is more worried about redecorating the White House in his schmaltzy self-image than he is about the real struggles of Americans, the kitsch stops being so funny," she wrote in closing.