With less than a week until a potentially historic midterm election, the political discourse is being dominated not by war or seismic shifts in technology, but by the Cheesecake Factory.

The big picture: Culture wars regularly swarm American political discussions, especially when the jibes are personal.

Former President Obama's passing joke over the weekend about Cheesecake Factory decor did just that — by criticizing President Trump's personal taste and style.

"He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory," Obama said, poking fun at the president's controversial White House renovations.

Zoom in: John Murphy, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who studies political rhetoric, tells Axios that the first time he heard Obama's comment, he "really did think, 'this is going to go somewhere.'"

That's both because of the messenger and the butt of the joke: Obama "can get under Trump's skin like no one else in the world can," he says.

Obama…