The Popeye’s chicken sandwich won’t save your soul, or America’s
Perhaps you’ve heard: Popeye’s has a new chicken sandwich.
Let’s get a few things out of the way. Yes, I’ve had the sandwich, a good 10 days ago, before it became A THING (I opted for the spicy version, which just means the mayo has some cayenne pepper in it).
Yes, the sandwich is good. It’s got a very thick piece of juicy, crispy fried chicken on a well-appointed, lightly toasted brioche bun. Its pickles are briny and bright. It’s got just the right amount of sauce to provide texture and flavor without drowning everything else.
It is also just a fast food chicken sandwich. I appreciate a well-crafted meal from fresh ingredients, but I’ll eat just about anything. Fast food serves a real purpose, and its near-universal accessibility makes it a democratizing force in our increasingly economically unbalanced society. But it has a ceiling.
I did not grow up eating Chick-fil-A. The Popeye’s sandwich is, in my objective opinion, better than Chick-fil-A’s (and Wendy’s, and any other fast food chicken sandwich I’ve had, so far as I can recall).
This is not a novel opinion, as you’ll know if you spend any amount of time online. Because, as I mentioned, the sandwich did, indeed, become A THING. Which, honestly, sucks.
The state of living in America in 2019 is one of waking up and bracing yourself for the next atrocity, state-sanctioned or otherwise, that might invade your life today. There is enough animosity in every aspect of our daily lives, in person and online, that just making it through a day without some national tragedy or personal infuriation has to be chalked up as a success. This takes a toll on our psyche, individually and collectively, and has produced the unfortunate side effect of people reaching out and latching on to anything good and pure in the world as a beacon of hope, embracing it as more than it is.
It’s why, when Chick-fil-A came with a poor attempt at a subtweet, the culture around the sandwich exploded as the Popeye’s account called its competitor out for running scared.
We’ve seen this collective rush to grab onto something hopeful with the Resistance grifters, Twitter Reply Guy personalities invading the president’s mentions at every turn with half-witty, buzzword-filled replies, to drum up support from the naïve, the gullible, the hopeless. We’ve seen it with the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty, a shockingly terrifying orange monster foisted upon a world too numb to react to another shockingly terrifying orange monster, so much so that he was coopted culturally as a socialist leader.
But let’s drill this particular moment down to what it really is. If a fast food company had unveiled a new burger that was a mild improvement on the status quo, we would not have seen the reaction we’ve seen across America. This is because a Chick-fil-A competitor unveiled a chicken sandwich that can rival and, arguably, exceed (your mileage may vary) Chick-fil-A’s signature product. This is because Chick-fil-A’s ownership has an odious history of donating to groups that discriminate against a marginalized group of American society. It’s about sticking it to the company has become a tip of the spear in the broader culture wars that envelop every waking moment of our ever more exhausting days.
Every article I’ve read about the sandwich — and, dear reader, trust me, that is a high number — has mentioned this point, but most only in passing. But it is the key point. It is the reason the sandwich is A THING, and not just a sandwich. It is a guilt-free (or at least guilt-reduced — the fast food industry is hardly without its issues generally) sandwich that the LGBTQ community and its allies can enjoy, seven days a week, no less.
That is what has led at least one publication to claim it is a masterpiece, and another that the sandwich will save America.
But here’s the thing — it isn’t, and it won’t. Because when people say things like “America,” they mean “my America.” And if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that the two sides of America are more politically fractured than ever. When we assign an object like a chicken sandwich some higher meaning, we also redraw the battle lines, making those who disagree with us dig their heels in harder, to declare their allegiance to Chick-fil-A, and Hobby Lobby, and all the things those companies have come to signify more broadly in our society.
I’ve not boycotted Chick-fil-A, though I understand why those who have made that decision did so. I’m pleased that I now have what I consider to be a better option now available to me, one that comes without that moral cost, and at a slightly cheaper financial cost as well (along with better side options). I’ll certainly go back to Popeye’s again, at some point, when the craving hits. But not for any reason other than that, and certainly not to post a photo of my more virtuous poultry consumption habits.
If you’ve not had the sandwich yet, I implore of you — give it a week. Just wait one week, for the lines to die down and the think pieces to stop flowing. When I got mine, there were already two competing lines at the local Popeye’s, of regular customers and of food delivery drivers, the second of which grew ever more contentious, and out of which broke a verbal spat with a counter worker because of the back-up. We’re at the breaking point of a long, hot summer, and we’re all so tired. Give everyone a break, especially the food service workers and delivery drivers, until the fervor has died down.
Because right now, the grift is strong. Last week, a Maryland man (an unfortunate, new mutation of the Florida man) offered the sandwich for personal delivery within 25 miles of his (presumable) home of Suitland, just outside D.C., for the low, low price of $138.52. On Monday, two New York idiots discovered the limits of a similarly enterprising idea, all while ruining the lunch plans of their fellow citizens.
If the sandwich represents in America in any way, it is thusly. It is a thing to be hustled, to be used to make a buck, to have all that is good about it squeezed and wrung and written about exhaustively until it can no longer just be consumed, at which point it will finally find its way back to the only thing it should be and is: a good chicken sandwich that everyone can enjoy.
