All-you-can-eat democracy; Joey Chestnut for President

Joey Chestnut is the right hero for this time in America’s devolution. Joey makes the headlines on a regular basis whenever Major League Eating (that’s actually a thing) sponsors an all-you-can-eat competition. That’s a uniquely American trait right there; the glorification of gluttony. Joey is famous because he can down more hotdogs in a sitting than any other “competitive eater” in the USA. He’s won the Nathans Hotdog Eating Championship an unprecedented 16 times. Only in America! USA! USA! USA!… Modern hotdogs consist of hyper-processed “meat product” sausages on a hyper-processed “grain product” bun. At least there’s no dog meat used anymore, which is where the hotdog got its name. At other times in America’s history, we might have had other heroes. George Washington, Abe Lincoln, General Patton. Ty Cobb. Joe Louis. Babe Ruth. But those were other times, simpler times. The first Nathans Championship was held in 1972. That heralded the dawn of the Age of Excess. By 1982, corporate stock buybacks were legalized. That enabled companies to spend their profits on buying up their own shares in the market. Previously, profits were ploughed into R&D, new technology, or even, on occasion, the wages and benefits of their workers. But we’re more civilized now. We raise animals in industrial-scale “barns” where they can live their entire cradle-to-abattoir life cycle without ever being inconvenienced by sunshine or rain. That’s humane farming! And we’ve outsourced most of our factory jobs to Mexico and Asia, and for those jobs we can’t offshore, we’ve insourced Mexican and Asian labour. Talk about a win-win! Reduced costs, enhanced profits, bigger paydays for the shareholders and management… what’s not to like? Well, for the tens of millions of formerly middle-class Americans slowly being ground into poverty over the past 50 years, there’s nothing to like. Turns out enriching owners while impoverishing workers is not a wildly popular strategy from the point of view of the general public. That’s how the faux populist Trump got elected in 2016. That was eight years ago. Much has changed. Many in America fail to understand how shoveling hundreds of billions to Ukraine and Israel serves the interests of anyone other than the corporate officers and shareholders of the companies profiting from the carnage. There’s an election coming up. The faux populist may prevail over the walking-dementia-patient Biden, but they are equally beholden to the same wealthy donors who profit from murder and mayhem. I believe it’s time for Joey Chestnut to launch his own political party. Gluttony is a banner Americans can rally around. He’s only a front-man for a wiener company, not Raytheon or Lockheed Martin. I’ve seen no evidence he gives a fig one way or the other re: Israel or Ukraine, which between them are in the process of destroying America’s standing in the world. Make America (really) great again… free hotdogs and a living wage for all! Joey Chestnut for president!