McDonald’s french fries and lies won’t win the White House

There's a new political dispute going 'round and it's one that goes like this: Kamala Harris, campaigning for president, says she's a born and bred middle class kid at heart and as proof, she says she worked at McDonald's during college.

"I did the fries," she said during a recent MSNBC interview with Stephanie Ruhle.

On the other side is Donald Trump, also running for president — and with a long string of successes to his name under his previous White House term — who responded to Harris's french fry claim by saying this, Breitbart reported : "She said she worked at McDonald's and she didn't. It was a lie. She never worked at McDonald's over the hot french fries."

Then came all the fact-checkers, en masse, not so much to fact check as to defend Harris.

"Harris sets record straight on McDonald's," MSNBC wrote.

"Why Donald Trump keeps talking about Kamala Harris's McDonald's job," The Washington Post wrote.

"Kamala Harris Fries Donald Trump When Asked About His McDonald's Truther Stance," Yahoo! News wrote.

Great. The media are on the ball. Just as they watchdogged and dug deep to discern President Joe Biden's favorite ice cream flavor, now they're watchdogging and fact-checking and digger even deeper to get us the truth about Harris's fast food experiences.

Thing is, like so much that goes forth in politics today, the bigger story is being swallowed by partisan hackers in the press.

The reason Harris's McDonald's story won't go away is that once again, her campaign narrative surrounding it is deceptive. She wants to present as a woman of the people, just chugging along in life, working hard, working hard, working against Da Man who just wants to keep her down and in poverty — all the while conveniently leaving out of that narrative her mom was a visiting professor at UC Berkeley and her dad was a professor at Stanford University and yes, she may have worked at Mickey D's for a time, but it was for a short time during her summer break from Howard University; and oh, yes, it was to earn extra spending money, not as a scrimp-and-save Hail Mary to stay in college.

There's a difference between those two narratives, dontcha see.

One is truth. The other is flight of fancy. And the one that Team Harris was trying to tell, trying to sell, was yet another fanciful fabrication of a candidate who is connected to nothing but failures in her White House background — failed border control, failed Afghanistan withdrawal, failed economy, etc., etc., etc.

Then again, Democrats are always trying to get down with the little people, so painting Harris as a fast-food server is par for the party's course.

Still. Consider this. Harris, in her recent remarks on national news, illuminated something that should be a very crucial consideration to every voter this November, i.e., her ideas on what constitutes the proper role of government. This goes to the heart of our nation and to the foundation of what it means to be free.

To Ruhle on MSNBC to clarify her McDonald's position, Harris said : "Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald's is because there are people who work at McDonald's in our country who are trying to raise a family — I worked there as a student; I was a kid — [but I'm talking about people] who worked there trying to raise families and pay rent on that. And I think part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility then is to meet those needs."

What she's implying is that people who work at McDonald's ought to be making enough money to pay rent, pay for their families, pay for all their daily needs, pay for their children's needs, and on that last, pay perhaps to put their children through college, and then some.

But that's all wrong.

McDonald's french fry servers are not supposed to earn as much money as engineers, or doctors, or lawyers, or police officers and firefighters — or college professors. McDonald's is primarily a place of low-skill, no-skill labor where first-time job seekers flock to get their feet in the door; where retirees and second-income seekers go to supplement their Social Security income; where part-time and seasonal employment seekers go to earn extra cash on flexible schedules. The chain also offers opportunities for fast-track management experience and entrepreneurial franchise ownership. But by and large, McDonald's worker is an upwardly mobile position, not a landing point for life.

French fry service is not the American dream.

It's a step toward achieving the American dream — and it's a very low level step, at that.

But Harris, along with most of today's Democrats, believe low-level, zero-skill jobs like the ones that dominate the fast food industry should pay a high enough wage that workers could stay the french fry service course for their entire lives. They believe in $15-an-hour minimum wages; $18-an-hour minimum wages; $25-an-hour minimum wages because they think those who have worked their way up the employment chain from $7.25-an-hour minimum wage to $100,000 salaries per year, or more, don't really deserve those earnings. They believe the fat cat capitalists who sacrificed sweat and tears to build their businesses, or achieve their high-paying careers, are greedy to want to keep their money and ought to distribute more to those in need — heck, ought to let the government tax them more so the politicians can redistribute to those they deem needful. They believe the illegal immigrant who crosses into America to take advantage of this nation's cushy entitlement system is just as worthy of a fine home and fine car and fine college career as the hard-working American taxpayer who lived off noodles and tuna to save money to purchase a three-bedroom in the suburbs. They believe in communism; they believe in government control of the means of production and distribution.

They don't believe in individual accountability and consequences for actions.

They don't believe in individual choice and paying for one's own way.

Moreover, they don't believe those without means have the ability, talent, smarts, determination and guts to achieve their own successes without government's help. They talk about helping people, but only so far as helping them obtain other peoples' resources. Such is the way of socialists. Independence and individualism are threats to their quests for power, so they work hard to destroy the honor that comes from working hard.

They don't believe in the American dream; they don't believe in God-given rights and liberties. They may pay those terms lip service, but what they really mean is Big Government.

When Harris says "part of the difference between me and my opponent includes our perspective on the needs of the American people and what our responsibility then is to meet those needs" — what she means is a White House under her control will bring more government, more redistribution of wealth, more regulatory and fiscal punishments for success, more dampening of the American spirit. In other words, more of the same of this present Biden administration; more of the government-granted; total destruction of the God-given.