The rain was coming down in sheets, the kind of gray, heavy drizzle that turns Pennsylvania asphalt into a dark mirror. I remember standing on a porch just like the one in the photos, waiting for a delivery that felt like a lifeline during a stretch of unemployment. You watch the app, the little digital icon moving closer, and you feel that specific, quiet hum of human connection. Someone else is out there, braving the elements, bringing you something you need. It is a moment of profound, simple reliance.
Then, there is the performance. Learn more on a related subject: this related article.
We saw it unfold recently, a spectacle wrapped in the familiar iconography of the gig economy. A former president, known for the gilded weight of his name, pulls up in a vehicle that belongs in a parade, not a fast-food drive-thru. He is there to hand over a bag of fries. He is there to play the role of the worker. The cameras clicked, the crowd cheered, and for a brief, strobe-lit second, the distance between the billionaire and the delivery driver seemed to vanish.
But public relations is a fickle beast. Additional journalism by The New York Times explores related views on the subject.
Days later, the narrative soured. The same figure who had been touting his brief stint behind the fry station began to distance himself, characterizing the event—or perhaps his own participation in it—with a dismissive swipe. He called it, by various accounts, tacky.
Consider the whiplash. One moment, the delivery bag is a prop of solidarity. The next, it is a costume to be discarded.
This isn’t just about a politician being inconsistent. It is about how we use the working class as a backdrop for our own stories.
Imagine Sarah. She’s real, even if she isn’t in the headlines. Sarah drives her sedan until the engine light flickers a nervous amber. She works the dinner rush, navigating the precise, unforgiving math of tips and gas prices. When she hands a customer a bag, she isn’t performing a stunt. She is performing a transaction of survival. The bag is heavy with the weight of her time.
When a public figure steps into that space for a photo opportunity, they are borrowing the dignity of that struggle. They are wearing the uniform of the gig worker like a theater costume. It works, right up until it doesn't. When the cameras turn off, the costume becomes itchy. It becomes something to apologize for, or to mock, or to distance oneself from.
The swipe at the stunt is the reveal. It signals that the worker’s reality was never the point. The point was the image of the worker.
There is a hollowness to this that cuts deeper than typical political maneuvering. It speaks to a profound disconnection from the reality of labor. In our modern economy, the delivery app is the great interface. It promises us that we can have anything, anywhere, at the click of a button. It hides the person in the car, the grease on the apron, the rush to beat the clock before the rating drops. We want the convenience without the friction of the human cost.
When someone uses that interface as a stage, they are playing into that blindness. They are betting that the audience won't notice the difference between a person earning their rent and a person playing a character.
But we do notice.
There is something inherently jarring about watching someone who occupies the absolute pinnacle of power try to shrink themselves into the seat of a service worker, only to realize later that they found the fit uncomfortable. It reveals a disdain that was always there, tucked behind the rehearsed smile. It suggests that, to them, the service industry is something to be tried on for an hour and then cast aside, like a cheap suit.
This is the central irony of our time. We treat the struggle of the average person as a set piece for the powerful to utilize, and when the set piece no longer serves the narrative, they blame the set. They call it tacky. They call it a mistake. They act as if the act of delivery is inherently beneath them, forgetting that for millions of people, that act is their entire life.
Perhaps the real problem is that we are too willing to watch. We are obsessed with the spectacle of the wealthy playing poor, or the famous playing humble. We treat these moments as "content," as if they aren't manifestations of a power dynamic that feels increasingly detached from the ground beneath our feet.
Every time we cheer for a stunt like this, we are participating in the erasure of the actual, messy, tired, hopeful reality of the gig economy. We are letting the actors decide the value of the work.
If you have ever stood on a porch waiting for a delivery in the rain, you know that the value isn't in the branding. It isn't in the politician’s grin or the inevitable, cynical retraction that follows. The value is in the person who showed up. The value is in the labor that doesn't ask for applause, but merely for the ability to pay the next bill.
The stunt is over. The photos are archived. The public figure has moved on to the next stage, the next costume, the next argument.
But the driveways remain. The apps are still pinging, their little digital icons inching across the map toward another doorstep, another anonymous customer, another human being carrying the weight of their own life in a paper bag. The show has left the building, but the work—the real, quiet, unglamorous, necessary work—continues. And it is entirely indifferent to the opinions of those who only ever stopped by for the photo.
In the end, the most telling part of this episode wasn't the fry station. It wasn't the smile or the uniform. It was the moment the mask slipped, revealing that for the people at the top, the rest of us are just scenery.
The screen goes dark, the applause fades, and the person who actually did the work is left alone in the rain, wondering why anyone ever thought their life was a costume to be worn, much less a thing to be sneered at.
The driveway is empty now.
