I asked this on my Facebook account, but I did not feel satisfied with the answers given considering what I have seen and read here.
On facebook, I asked about how it’s connected to Donald Trump. How and why and what the reference is.
The people who replied told me in so many words that basically “it’s not connected to Donald Trump at all, it predates him going back to the early 40s and 50s”
Okay… That may be so..
… But then why on Earth do I always see the term “nothing Burger” connected to Donald Trump on here? Like that is the only time I ever see that word being used, when it’s being used in tandem with something Donald Trump said.
What am I missing here? Two people on Facebook said that it is not connected to Donald Trump in any way but from what I have seen on here, it is…
What is it nothing burger and how did it get linked to Donald Trump specifically?
A Nothing Burger is a joke about a “hamburger” that’s “hold the cheese, pickles, lettuce, onion, tomato, catsup, patty and bun”– in other words, nothing’s left. It’s a modern variation of an old joke about " “If we had some ham, we could have a ham sandwich, if we had some bread”. Colloquially, a Nothing Burger is something so lacking in merit or content that it’s dismissible. If there’s a context referring to Donald Trump I haven’t heard it before.
“Nothingburger” apparently was popularized in the Fifties by a Hollywood gossip columnist and saw a resurgence in 2016 due to the Trump/Russia investigation and attempts to frame the whole Trump/Russia thing as a hoax. Essentially, it’s a modernization of Shakespeare.
Thank you, I was figuring I was going crazy. Well…crazier.
It’s like “not connected to Donald trump? I ONLY ever see it connected to Donald Trump on these boards”
I can’t tell you how many times I have seen someone talking about Donald Trump, something he did or said, and then somebody else quote it and be like “it’s a nothing Burger”.
I have never heard of that term before being on here and reading about threads involving Donald Trump.
Slightly related but this might just be a reference to him being like a toddler and throwing a temper tantrum and food around…
… But is there any reference that I’m missing with the whole “there’s going to be ketchup on the walls tonight” and similar comments?
Is he known for throwing food at the walls? Has this happened already? Or is it just comparing him to an angry kid who is possibly pounding on ketchup packets?
It did not originate with him, is I think what people are saying, though you’re right, not only has he used it, but people have regularly used it in reference to him. The fact that he apparently likes hamburgers a lot is undoubtedly part of the reason why.
There’s a well-known (but unconfirmed) story, related by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson during her testimony before the House January 6th Committee in 2022.
Nah, I specifically asked on Facebook “what is the connection to him, why do I see this referenced every time Donald Trump is talked about?”
The two answers I got were “it is not connected to Donald Trump in any way”.
Of course I could have probably just googled myself. I did wind up doing that and I found that he and his team used that phrase a ton in 2016… So that it became linked to him.
Makes sense now…
I guess the people who answered my status on Facebook just didn’t know about that part.
My memory on this is probably off, but I think it was frequently used by Trump supporters to indicate that whatever Trump was being accused of basically had no merit, even when the evidence was plainly there for all to see. (Kind of like, nothing to see here, let’s move on.) For example that Mar-a-Lago documents case where he stole confidential documents from the White House? Just a big nothingburger. It probably got associated with Trump because his supporters used it to defend him every time another criminal act of his was exposed.
That’s what Google said. Used by Donald Trump… And his team. Probably his supporters too though.
So that answers my question, thank you.
That’s all I was wondering, why / how is it connected to Donald Trump?
I wasn’t really asking “is it connected to Donald Trump?”… I already knew it was due to my history on here of seeing it in pretty much every other Donald Trump topic. I just didn’t know what the specific connection was. Looks like they used it a lot so they are now forever in bed with it.
The simple answer is that the Trump sphere liked to use it to dismiss actual factual accusations of the president, and since there are many many factual accusations against the president, they would say it many many times a day, if not within the same press conference. When everything is a nothing burger, nothing is a nothing burger.
My experience is the opposite of the OP’s. I’ve never seen nothingburger applied to Trump in any way by anybody. But I’ve seen the term a million times. It went back into popularity a decade ago, pre-Trump, when practically everyone in Washington was using it.
Additional info on the ketchup on the wall incident:
It wasn’t just any ol’ wall painted with latex paint that could be cleaned up with a sponge and some spray cleaner. Nope. The wall covering was silk, or some other expensive fabric, and it would require professional cleaning, or even having the wall covering replaced.
Like everything else, his messes are always somebody else’s fault.
Trump is definitely not into nothing burgers. His favorite involves two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, and onions on a sesame seed bun…times 2. Plus other stuff.
