In exciting news for fans of rich old white guys in positions of power, the former reality show host and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has announced the line-up for his economic policy team, a squad exclusively made up of members of the “fat cat” demographic.
Among those named in Trump’s announcement is Howard Lorber, the 67-year old president and CEO of Vector Group Ltd, and chairman of Nathan’s Famous, the fast food hot dog chain.
The biggest surprise here might be that Trump has chosen Lorber for his economic team and not to run his campaign – after all, Lorber already has a wealth of experience selling the American public on the thoughtless consumption of bad meat, fat and preservatives compressed into strangely colored tubes. It’s as though Lorber has been waiting for Trump’s call his entire career.
At the risk of getting this publication added to Trump’s blackballed list, I want to make it abundantly clear that when I say “bad meat, fat and preservatives compressed into strangely colored tubes”, I’m making a direct comparison between hot dogs and Donald Trump’s physical appearance.
To be fair, I eat hot dogs sometimes. They’re weirdly a part of my cultural dietary heritage, and a classic bit of Americana. And that might be the most troubling thing here. Was it not bad enough that Trump ruined our political system, social media, and the state of rational discourse in this country? He has to take hot dogs away from us now, too? Sure, they’re gross, but they’re also inextricably entwined in the American imagination with summertime, the ballpark, strolls along the boardwalk at Coney Island and backyard cookouts on the Fourth of July.
Did Putin put him up to this? Is this the next phase of Vladimir’s diabolical plan? What’s next? Is he going to instruct Trump to extensively quote Tony Stark in his next stump speech so that we can’t enjoy Avengers movies anymore, either? Is Trump suddenly going to appear in public eating a Twinkie or tweet rankings of his favorite episodes of Seinfeld? Where does it end?
Another comparison between Trump and hot dogs? They’re both cheap. Oh, and they both require troubling amounts of beer to stomach.
Actually, Trump and hot dogs are a match made in heaven. The only way either makes sense is if you apply no rational thought to the selection you are making. As a presidential candidate, Trump is relying on an emotional response from a frazzled and frightened populace eager to embrace some fantasy of the way things used to be; the hot dog industry is built on the idea that the nitrate delivery systems they are selling strike a nostalgic chord in consumers who really ought to know better.
This year has seemed like a pivotal collection of moments in American life, and maybe Donald Trump selecting Lorber for his economic team is part of that. Maybe Trump is doing us a favor. By forever linking his campaign to hot dogs, he has potentially freed us from the tyrannical belief we should eat them because they’re what Americans eat. Maybe we can be better, going forward. Maybe we can be the kind of people who think long-term, without hot dogs terrorizing our insides. So thank you, Donald Trump. If you stop right now, you will have somehow, against all odds, have made the world a better place.
