The Year of McDonald’s

McDonald’s is central to American life, both physically and culturally. The last few months have provided two massive news stories that have emphasized this. At the end of October, there was the viral, and controversial, Trump campaign stop, where he “worked” for 30 minutes at a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania. Then, this week, there was the news that Luigi Mangione, the alleged assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, was caught in a McDonald’s—also, coincidentally, in Pennsylvania—because he was spotted by a group of morning regulars and employees.

The reaction to both stories in certain parts of the media has proved that a lot of commentators don’t understand what McDonald’s means to ordinary Americans—which basically means that they don’t understand ordinary Americans, period.

Let’s start with the most recent. After Mangione was arrested, I saw two questions raised. The first was: Why would someone “so careful” as Mangione go into a McDonald’s? The second was: How in the world was he noticed—given that it is a soulless franchise where you should be able to easily blend in, since each is the same bland, and heavily trafficked space?