The Washington Post has heroically scoured campaign finance reports to figure out what politicos of different parties like to eat:
Fast food in general appears to be a Republican thing: Overall, GOP campaigns outspent Democrats about 18-to-1 at fast-food joints of all stripes.
As best I can tell, Republicans outspent Democrats about 2:1 on food in general. So the relative fast-food divide is probably really around 9:1. That's still a lot!
This is probably not just a coincidence. Here is the very first comment on the article:
Real democrats like me don’t eat sugary and fatty fast food. We understand the externality associated with obesity. I’m still ashamed of urban Democrats for feeding their kids fast food and making them obese.
The rest go on and on and on in this vein. We liberals really are a pain in the ass, aren't we?
The better response would have been, Republicans like shit don't they.
Humblebrager with cheese.
Fat shaming. It's for everyone.
That may be true of food spending by campaigns. But, if you took a survey of all fast food customers, I am pretty positive the majority would not be republicans.
I'm pretty sure that his has nothing to do with what people eat and everything to do with your biases and prejudices.
I'm betting most of them are not Democrats or Republicans.
Undecided?
Quick, get an ad in front of them.
Just when I though WaPo couldn't get any stupider.
This is the dumbest conclusion I've seen in a long time.
It’s also a ridiculous article to be put in a prominent place on its webpage when our democracy hangs in the balance — a point the commenters made very vociferously.
Republicans have turned fast food into an "American" thing. If you like it, you're a real American. If you don't you are too woke.
Kamala has learned a lesson or two from Trump and she's using that same "logic" to get to Trump.
Unfortunately you can't use logic on voters because most of us are uneducated when it comes to policy - AND - for many voters, owning the libs is more important than enacting good policy.
I told a friend recently that NOT taxing social security was a good thing to which he replied "Trump came up with the idea first". I said yes he did publicize this first but did you know it was Reagan who originally taxed social security in the first place?
Funny how silent he became..........
Assuming that wasn’t state taxes while he was Governor, mythic as we may hold the power of the President, during the Reagan Administration, Democrats controlled the House Of Representatives.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/97th_United_States_Congress
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/98th_United_States_Congress
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/99th_United_States_Congress
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/100th_United_States_Congress
The Social Security Amendments of 1983 was a bipartisan bill
It included both benefit reductions (favored by Republicans) and revenue increases (favored by Democrats).
It wasn't state taxes. California does not tax SS benefits.
is it being a pain it the ass to not eat shitty food that makes me feel bad, get fat and die earlier? i don't lecture anyone else on what they should be eating, but yeah, i def think it's a bad decision if you have other options. and it really does bug me that most younger people seem not to know how to cook. it's a pretty important life skill someone should be teaching them. #OldManyYellsAtCloud
I lecture people on use of capitalization in English though. It's a pretty important life skill.
it it? i've gotten on well without it.
No, not "it it" - "It's it" 🙂 https://www.itsiticecream.com
Well, only in an indirect way.
I would be willing to bet that there are gender differences in the makeup of the campaign staff, with GOP campaigns weighted toward more male staff.
Maybe this is just measuring the gender divide on fast food. Women eat less fast food than men in the general population, and young men are huge consumers of fast food - plenty of research studies find this result. So a campaign with lots of young men on staff is going to go through a ton of fast food burgers and fries.
Excellent logic here.
Presumably, Freedom Fries!
In that vein, I notice that Le Pain Quotidien seems to double as Democratic HQ.
So the Democrats will insist on wage increases for fast food workers but won’t actually frequent fast food establishments? …
Yes.
Those two things have nothing to do with each other, and higher minimum wages affect far more workers than those in fast food.
Yet fast-food workers were the "face" if you will of the Fight for Fifteen and such.
I didn't say they had did; I said that both were true.
I don't avoid fast-food joints because of the workers, I avoid them because of the food.
As to workers, minimum wage should be much higher in most places, and it has nothing to do with the industry that employs the workers.
But yes, fast-food workers deserve a higher minimum wage and yes I won't eat at fast food joints except out of desperation. (In truth, I mostly eat at home, and my grocery store workers also deserve higher minimum wage. They are reliable customers at our local food pantry for a very good reason; their pay is too low to get by on without help; their low pay subsidizes cheaper groceries.)
Typical non-sequitur from a conservative. If anything, not frequenting fast food restaurants while still advocating for workers at those establishments suggests a higher level of altruism and generosity. But you continue to think you made any point.
We'll see to it that you are paid more, but won't go to the establishments, so it will be someone else's money you get paid, assuming the establishments continue without our business.
It isn't all that far from Kevin advocating for high-paying union jobs for US auto workers and then buying a foreign-made car.
Do you think this is logic?
My bet is that Democratic treasurers don't think that a McDonald's lunch on the way to a rally should be either reimbursed or reported. Just let the volunteer, staff and/or candidate eat the cost along with their food.
Huh? Why?
That the Chik Fil A circle is so big seems pretty telling.
Well, we all are supposed to eat less beef in the name of combating climate change, yes? …
Yes, that's it. One party eats a lot of Chik Fil A to "combat climate change"
I guess the “…” “/s” equivalence is not well known.
Still did this investigation by the Post include controlling for opportunity? I doubt all the fast food chains are evenly/equally distributed.
And perhaps most importantly, which of the bubbles is Culver’s?-)
Not if it's breaded, deep fat fried, and loaded with sodium.
One Chik Fil A standard chicken sandwich has 18 grams of fat and 1460 mg of sodium. The deluxe version has 22 grams of fat and 1700 mg sodium.
From the FDA: Diets higher in sodium are associated with an increased risk of developing high blood pressure, which is a major cause of stroke and heart disease. Their Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends adults limit sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg per day, so a single Deluxe chicken sandwich gets you close to the recommended daily limit.
I had a bite of one once. The predominant taste was salt. They do have a grilled version with about half the fat and sodium, but I'm guessing it is mostly bought by libruls.
Its the cheese Grommit!-)
Nice to see that when I am substituting Pepper Jack for the American cheese I drop 90 mg of sodium from the sandwich... of course, I eat that perhaps once a quarter.
https://www.chick-fil-a.com/nutrition-allergens?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAADRIo1Od_CHXNiILfiUjn_Ocr76fe&gclid=Cj0KCQjwgrO4BhC2ARIsAKQ7zUnAX_40bQrRt2eebT_pLQW80xfWsMQG9LzkLzoGLNuv_t3tNqXj5uMaAjCwEALw_wcB
Alas, it doesn't say how much I omit when I eschew the dill pickle slices... Although https://www.uhhospitals.org/health-information/health-and-wellness-library/article/nutritionfacts-v1/pickles-cucumber-dill-1-slice suggests it approaches 90mg per slice (I think there are usually two).
Chick-fil-A sandwiches are straight up delicious, and sodium is not the primary taste. I'm not only partial to Chick-fil-A though, love the chicken sandwiches at Popeye's and Church's too.
That's more a luxury experience (not cost) for me maybe once a month though.
I have an intolerance for a dough conditioner in Chick-Fil-A buns. I used to patronize Popeye’s about once a month especially for the side of red beans and rice.
I still mourn the demise of jambalaya at Popeye’s.
An anecdote for the incomplete melting pot… at an airport Popeye’s - Nashville iirc - the man of likely South Asian descent didn’t know what I was asking about when I asked after jambalaya. I didn’t have the presence of mind to say it was kindasorta a Cajun biryani.
Is that still a thing with liberals? Boycotting Chick Fil A? It's so ubiquitous here (I live in FL) that I forgot liberals took issue with the company.
Perhaps with some, but the Chick-Fil-A near me (just a couple of miles south of San Francisco in a very deep blue area) always has long lines.
My problem with the place is that when I see the sign I always mentally pronounce it as Chick Fill Uh.
Yes, but mostly because I find it extremely easy to boycott them because they are generally very near some place better.
Republicans are utter assholes about food. They love othering people for eating weird things. (No points for remembering a recent near-pogrom over black immigrants and dogs.) Hell, my mother, more "small-c" than Republican, acts weird about my eating habits.
I don't take it from Democrats, either. Politicizing food choices is fucking stupid. If all you have is, "you don't eat like a member of my tribe", you're not worth arguing with.
“ They love othering people for eating weird things.‘
You remind me that when I moved to San Francisco in 1980 eating sushi was considered unusual to many people. A co-worker who was a Republican and a cowboy couldn’t stop commenting on the fact that I ate sushi and was, therefore, weird.
Did you notice in the article that 86% of the McDonald's spending was by Trump (or at least the Trump Campaign)? If you factor that out, the fast-food spending gap is a lot less. Amazing that a guy with all that money can't find something he likes better than McDonald's.
It seems to me that eating at McDonalds to curry favor with Trump is taking things a bit to far, even for them.
Clearly, Trump is just emulating Bill Clinton...
Have they ever been seen together? Is Trump just Bill Clinton after 5,000 Big Macs?
I think part of the fast food eating is "common man" stuff. Whole Foods is stupid expensive so not something that the average person shops at. Fast food on the other hand is consumed by the poor at a much higher rate than the well off.
I'm going out on a limb here, but my guess is that most fast food is consumed because the person whose job it is to organize family meals is busy and funds are short and it's right there in your face and engineered to taste delicious.
Fast food is expensive today. I had to take my son back to school yesterday at the end of fall break, so I stopped when I fueled to get something to eat. I was shocked at the price. For a family of four it is going to cost $40 to eat at a fast food place.
I assume that in my hometown the prices are similar. Fast food might be the easy option, but it is not fast, it is not healthy and it is now, not cheap.
I read somewhere that at some point back in the day, Trump got all paranoid that if he ate at regular sit-down restaurants, someone would try to poison him or spit in his food or whatever (he probably wasn't wrong), so got into the habit of getting fast food takeout where they supposedly wouldn't know who they were serving.
In the linked article under the heading Major Chains, the third bubble from the left is “Disney”. What restaurant or food store is “Disney”.
Also, what fast food does "Walmart" represent?
Do Republicans really eat twice as much as Democrats, or are their staffs twice as big? The policies for providing food may be different - Democrats may leave it up to individuals to choose where to eat. The results may reflect the decisions of a few who are in charge of spending the money, not the majority of staff. Lots of things are missing from the story, and it would be foolish to draw major conclusions from it.
You are harshing my confirmation biases man.
Eating fast food frequently is a ticket to bad health, sensible people understand this, especially the more educated on health and nutrition. Once in a while? Have at it, I had an ultimate cheeseburger and fries yesterday as a friend of mine had $5 coupons.
Along with that, fast food is overrated, it's not really that good, if you have even rudimentary cookings skills, and I'll take a home barbecued burger any day, especially because I know it's a better cut of meat (chicken sandwiches a different matter).
Finally, if our goal is to selfishly destroy the world, then keep on keeping on and don't shame the folks who have enshrined fast food as an American value.
Add to this the fact that it's not cheap. It may be convenient but like you said, it's often not as good as you can make at home with a small amount of cooking skills.
yeah, fast food has the unappealing dual qualities of being bad for you and tasting terrible. the worst homemade hamburger is so much better than anything you can get at mccdonalds or equivalent quality/price fast food spots.
Shouldn't fast food carry an Obamacare tax, since we're all paying for the medical care for the results? The low prices seem unrealistic given the overall costs.
Seems like a classic externality.
Anyway, once again, the answer is to turn the rust belt into a big cycling park/vacation destination and give all those deindustrialized types an opportunity to live a healthier life.
I think there are just as many if not more conservatives that judge other peoples behavior. It's not just liberals. Of course the most egregious of all of them are the most vocal. People love to hate, but they also like to judge others.
There's good reason to suspect that many of the quick comments on news stories are not honest opinions, but false flags. Who benefits from reinforcing the idea that liberals are morally offended by what most Americans like?
I eat McDonald's when traveling. Chicken nuggets and fries are always the same wherever you are. As an adult picky eater with a sensitive tongue, I appreciate knowing that the golden arches are always there, ensuring that there's something I can eat.
Well now, that makes sense why Republicans think inflation has been larger than it actually is. This is one category where inflation really did go up by a lot and will not come back down.
> We liberals really are a pain in the ass, aren't we?
"What 'we' white man?" I eat fast food and sugary food all the time.
Wegovy
Made for the Republican in your family
I hate to say it after so many well-meaning comments, but can everybody stop? While Kevin doesn't have much to say about it, other than that the WSJ factoid caught his eye, he makes it worse by suggesting that it's about Dems vs MAGA. But please, campaign workers who qualify for expenses are not the base, not even close.
So the comments talk about the GOP voter's usual tribalism embodied in brand names, hatred of fast food that the commentator already had apart from this topic, lifestyles, and the appeal of fast food from the ordinary worker who doesn't have time to cook for family. But no, no, no. Hey, GOP campaign workers are men who would never cood for family in a million years, but have no less a lifestyle.
Look, a WSJ article is not a reliable source, period. And beyond that, it's about reimbursement codes, the geography of where party headquarters are localized, and anything BUT real voters.
Hmmm. I wonder what "urban Democrat" could possibly mean?
That was a fairly clear tipoff that that commenter was posing as a white, college-educated sort of Democrat, showing contempt for black people. Maybe it was really open caricature, not as subtle as I first supposed.
We liberals really are a pain in the ass, aren't we?
Assuming that wasn't sarcasm, I mean, we do believe in what the science of junk food tells us, and reality has a well known pain in the ass bias, I guess? Meanwhile, Republicans once tried to tell us that ketchup was a vegetable thing so they could get out of trying to feed children in school well, seems like that PITA title fits their heads better.