About the Kamala-McDonald's Saga

It's hot take time, plus Al Pacino and news from The Popeyes 7-Miler

Dear Friends,

The number of people who have worked for McDonald’s at some point in their lives is an eternal fascination of mine. In my last book, I wrote about the 1996 survey that pinned this figure at 1 in 8 Americans. Back then, fast-food work was still hanging on as a symbol of innocent striving; the wholesome, visor-capped embodiment of summer work, first jobs, responsible teens getting pocket money, or of an enterprising set laddering up to management, store ownership, or the corporate office.

Last year, McDonald’s conducted its own updated version of the survey and found that this mind-boggling 1-in-8 stat remains true. Obviously, the context is a bit different now. McJob has been a stand-in slur for a dead-end job for decades and McDonald’s workers have arguably been the face of the embattled movement to boost the minimum wage since the Fight for $15 began in 2012. (McDonald’s is also one of America’s top employers of people who rely on benefits like food stamps and Medicaid to get by.)

Still, the company remains keen to show how it’s served as the starting point for millions of careers. Alongside last year’s survey, the company launched the 1 in 8 initiative to showcase the stories of the 12.5 percent(!) of U.S. workers who have pulled shifts beneath the Golden Arches. And, as the campaign got underway, various news outlets remained us again of how the list of notable McDonald’s alumni is nothing to sneeze at…especially not while salting a warming tray of fries. In no real meaningful order, famous McAlums include Jeff Bezos, Seal, Pink, Macy Gray, Sharon Stone, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Pharrell Williams, Jay Leno, Katya Echazarreta (the astronaut), Cody Rigsby (the Peloton hunk), Olympian Carl Lewis, and former White House Chief of Staff Andy Card. And James Franco.¹

Earlier this month at the DNC, two more names were added to this illustrious roster: Kamala Harris and Doug Emhoff (aka “Dougie Mushball”), the latter of whom had once been an employee of the month.

Harris’ choice to highlight her McDonald’s experience (which she’d done before) had a specific objective. After all, we’re in an election season when performative sobriety about the economy will determine the fate of the world. As one Democratic strategist told Emily Heil at WaPo about the optics of this bit of biography, “It’s a great part of her life and experience to highlight against a guy who inherited his wealth, who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.”

This isn’t the first time the Golden Arches has been used as a political device on the national level. Donald Trump was “the fast-food president” who regularly broadcast images of himself eating McDonald’s and KFC to burnish his everyman bona fides and thumb his nose at the elites in 2016. (The journalist Michael Wolff also contends that Trump likes McDonald’s because he is constantly terrified of being poisoned, which is another minefield entirely.)

And while Harris previously referenced her time working at McDonald’s when she joined with striking McDonald’s workers in Las Vegas in 2019, others have used their hard-earned perspective from working the fryers to advance sentiments that are much less sympathetic toward the struggles of the low-wage workers. Take former House Speaker Paul Ryan, whose lessons from working at McDonald’s have less to do with the need for better pay and sick leave and secure scheduling and more to do with the idea that Americans have gotten lazy and/or overly dependent on the government.

Speaking on the stump and dropping his Gs prodigiously as Mitt Romney’s running mate in 2012, Ryan called back to a time when grit and self-reliance got you off the low rung: “I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up, you know, when I was flippin’ burgers at McDonald’s, when I was standing in front of that big Hobart machine washing dishes or waiting tables, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life.” You can see why this line of thinking is seductive and, for Ryan, that worldview materialized into more go-it-alone policies like paring back Medicaid or trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

(To be sure, basically everything about the profile of the average fast-food worker – from age, to number of dependents, to annual income, to use of public benefits – along with the cost of housing, education, etc., ALL indicate workers need more support and less extremely tough love. But that hasn’t stopped major political figures from claiming otherwise.)

***

The DNC is now long over, but Kamala’s summer stint at McDonald’s is back in the news this week after a band of McTruthers, including former President Trump, claimed that Harris is lying about having worked at McDonald’s. The smoking bun (heh) seems to be that she left it off a legal résumé. Here at The Crunchwrap, while we find it hard to believe that she would stoop to stolen fast food valor…we also don’t care.

Working at McDonald’s when you’re young isn’t a guarantor of character. Ultimately, you can work at McDonald’s and still become a union buster (Bezos). You might still end up canceled (Franco). You may end up trying to privatize social security (Ryan) or ultimately be responsible for writing the worst song ever written. No job is a guarantor of character. Especially not the presidency.

Marathon Update

You may remember that I’m (nobly and slowly) running the 2024 NYC Marathon with Democracy Works. Democracy Works is a nonpartisan nonprofit that works to expand voter access by providing reliable registration and voting information. For example, the organization has officially partnered with TikTok to power its election guidance platform. (As they definitely say on #VoteTok: No cap, voting rights are literally sigma.)

I’m excited to say that since my last newsletter, I nailed completed The Popeyes 7-Miler™ at a respectable pace and celebrated with a biscuit, Cajun fries, and Popeyes’ new line up of wings. (Wing verdict: solid.)

I also learned the hard way (as amateurs do) that just entering two points on Google Maps for directions isn’t necessarily going to guide you on the safest route. For some foolish reason, I trusted that Google wouldn’t leave me – like a dickhead – jogging sluggishly in the August sun in a neon water belt and reflective hat down a stretch of highway with no sidewalk.

But I suppose that’s a great metaphor for why Democracy Works is so important! You can’t really trust the baseline info that’s out there online, especially with all the bad actors out there. And that matters…whether it’s running to the polls or running to the Popeyes. (Eh?)

Anyway, to commemorate this milestone in my training, I’m offering loyal Crunchwrap readers the opportunity to own a piece of history. Donate to my NYC Marathon campaign with Democracy Works this Labor Day Weekend and you will have a shot to win one of five limited-edition Popeyes 7-Miler t-shirts, designed by me. (I am being completely serious.)

Not just handsome, but soft cotton.

I will be drawing five winners after Labor Day Weekend, so act now! Pretty please.

---

Nu, what else?

• I write about Al Pacino at least once a year in this newsletter. I don’t know why and I’ll probably never know. BUT his new memoir was recently excerpted in The New Yorker and it’s beautifully written. South Bronx childhood, financial precarity, doubt, pathos, art, tragedy, a stint working for Commentary Magazine(!), and more. Endorse.

• As someone who once had cream cheese confiscated by TSA in a soft act of antisemitism, I was belatedly vindicated after TSA Twitter declared peanut butter to be a liquid and incurred the world’s chunky wrath.

• Not to completely mess up your long weekend, BUT, Caitlin Dickerson’s dispatch from Darién Gap between Columbia and Panama, where thousands of migrants are risking it all to make it north, is a shocking must-read. (Gift link.)

That’s it for now! Thank you as always for reading and supporting.

With love,

Adam

1. Shania Twain and Rachel McAdams also make this list of wonder, but as Canadian entrants.