Democratic Socialism

On this day:
987
Hugh Capet is crowned King of France, the first of the Capetian dynasty that would rule France until the French Revolution in 1792.
1754
French and Indian War: George Washington surrenders Fort Necessity to French forces.
1775
American Revolutionary War: George Washington takes command of the Continental Army at Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1778
American Revolutionary War: British forces kill 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre.
1863
American Civil War: The final day of the Battle of Gettysburg culminates with Pickett’s Charge.
1898
Spanish-American War: The Spanish fleet, led by Pascual Cervera y Topete, is destroyed by the U.S. Navy in Santiago, Cuba.
1913
Confederate veterans at the Great Reunion of 1913 reenact Pickett’s Charge; upon reaching the high-water mark of the Confederacy, they are met by the outstretched hands of friendship from Union survivors.
1940
World War II: the French fleet of the Atlantic, based at Mers el Kébir, is bombarded by the British fleet from Gibraltar, resulting in the loss of three battleships: Dunkerque, Provence, and Bretagne. One thousand two hundred sailors perish.

***

Hilary Clinton, in discussing her loss to Trump, offered this incomprehensible mixed religious/biologic non sequitur: "Certainly, misogyny played a role; I mean that just has to be admitted. The things that come out of some of these men's mouths, like why do we have to cover maternity care? Oh, I don't know, maybe you were dropped by immaculate conception?"

***

Three men have been found not guilty of the murder of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry in 2019.

***

We have become obsessed with the outlier.
A gift from Critical Theory: an individual cannot escape or transcend his group. Strange and outrageous behavior by one individual has become generalized to represent a larger group. So one lunatic cop is representative of all cops. And those cops are representative of all society.
The wide generalization from small experiences to large populations is a virtual definition of bigotry.

***

Darializa Avila Chevalier is 32 years old and has never not been in school, including more than 14 years of post-secondary education.

***

Democratic Socialism

The phrase "democratic socialism" mixes two entities, a governing system and an economic one. But the freedom of the vote in no way bleeds any freedom into the economic system. Democracy is the process by which the hierarchy--for good or ill--is chosen. Socialism is the very unfree government ownership and management of formerly public assets, a state usually requiring force to achieve and maintain.

"Democratic socialism" is, at best, a misunderstanding, and, at worst, malicious marketing.

So voting for socialism displaces a lot of the decision-making, by definition. It's not necessarily an oxymoron; the vote always creates a new reality. But individual freedom stops at the ballot box. The power to rule is transferred to another. The "representative." That happens in spades in democracies in wartime. The outrage over the internment of the Japanese in WW11 misunderstands this fundamental change. The vote allows citizens to choose their tyrant. Once the tribe votes for the war chief, individual decision-making is over.

"Democracy" implies "virtue" to our arrogant minds. It is not. It is a simple way of deciding. In the American example, it is ingenious--but only because of the limits created by its founders. The potential for tyranny is constrained by the Constitution. But this structure is not a characteristic of democracy; it is unique. Russia votes. Hitler was elected.

In democratic socialism, the citizens vote to surrender the national assets to a third party and accept the consequences.

Gettysburg and The Somme

On this day, June 2:

626
Li Shimin, the future Emperor Taizong of Tang, Emperor of China, ambushes and kills his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng in the Incident at Xuanwu Gate.
1644
English Civil War: Battle of Marston Moor.
1698
Thomas Savery patents the first steam engine.
1776
The Continental Congress adopts a resolution severing ties with Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence is not approved until July 4.
1777
Vermont becomes the first American territory to abolish slavery.
1839
Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, 53 rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinqué take over the slave ship Amistad.
1853
The Russian Army crossed the Pruth river into the Danubian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia—providing the spark that set off the Crimean War.
1881
Charles J. Guiteau shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President James Garfield, who eventually dies from an infection on September 19.
1897
Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtains a patent for radio in London.
1900
The first Zeppelin flight takes place on Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.
1934
The Night of the Long Knives ends with the death of Ernst Röhm.
1937
Amelia Earhart and navigator Fred Noonan are last heard from over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to make the first equatorial round-the-world flight.
1964
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 meant to prohibit segregation in public places.
1976
Fall of the Republic of Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam declares their union to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

***


"To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of Freedom itself."-- Burke

***

French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre founded the SSPX ( Society of Saint Pius X) in 1970 in opposition to the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council. Among other things, the 1960s meetings known as Vatican II revolutionized the church’s relations with other Christians, Jews and people of other faiths and allowed Mass to be celebrated in the vernacular rather than Latin.

Lefebvre consecrated four bishops without papal consent in 1988. The Vatican promptly excommunicated Lefebvre and the four bishops and declared the consecrations a “schismatic act.”

Pope Benedict XVI in 2009 lifted the excommunications as part of his yearslong outreach to the group.

Leo XIV has a shorter fuse.

During a ritual-filled, five-hour Mass on Wednesday, attended by some 15,500 people and their children, the SSPX consecrated four new bishops in direct defiance of Pope Leo XIV, who had urged the SSPX to hold off for the sake of the church’s unity.

In a decree, the Vatican excommunicated the four new bishops and the two bishops who participated in the ceremony. It declared the consecrations a “schismatic act” and declared the society itself had created a schism, or intentional rupture with the Catholic Church.

***

One consequence of a wealth tax: When a wealth-tax bill comes due, the owner of a closely held company will often pull out a larger dividend to cover it. Once that money has left the company, it doesn’t go back into payroll or business expansion.

Inherent to taxation is the ability to destroy. That is one of the rationales for the tax exclusion of religions. A wealth tax destroys...wealth.

***

Gettysburg and The Somme

Today is the anniversary of Day 2 of the Battle of Gettysburg and Day 2 of the Battle of the Somme.

Gettysburg was a three-day fight.

Nearly one-third of the total forces engaged at Gettysburg became casualties. George Gordon Meade’s Army of the Potomac lost 28 percent of the men involved; Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia suffered over 37 percent.

Of these casualties, 7,058 were fatalities (3,155 Union, 3,903 Confederate). Another 33,264 had been wounded (14,529 Union, 18,735 Confederate) and 10,790 were missing (5,365 Union, 5,425 Confederate).

The Battle of the Somme, one of the deadliest battles in all of human history, was fought between July and November 1916 during World War I.

The battle involved more than three million men, of whom one million were either wounded or killed. 20,000 British died on the first day. The total casualties, estimated to be more than 1,000,000, included 650,000 German casualties, 420,000 British, and 195,000 French. Enough to give war a bad name.

The Civil War in the U.S. was fought to preserve the Union and eventually succeeded in ending slavery in the country. WWI would be difficult to categorize; it was a result of complex allegiances and accidents.
Its main effect was to create the foundations for World War II.

The Civil War in the U.S. had some significant long-term value despite the horror, but WWI?

My point here, two days before Independence Day, is to highlight our astonishing good fortune to be removed from Europe's homicidal history and to ask the question: Why do the Europeans have such confidence in the wisdom and leadership of their rulers? Looking at WWI as an example, why would anybody trust these people, who marshal their benighted citizens to fight in inexplicable wars named in decades and centuries? Why would the world not be dominated by laws limiting the damage governments and their minions could do?

And why would any group concerned about the abuse of power that relentlessly victimizes the ordinary people of the world not emphasize the time-honored, obvious, dangerous source of real power: the warlord and the domestic leaders? Those unable to satisfy their ambition and greed through their own talents.

No one in the history of man has ever run into town screaming, "Run for your lives, the farmers are coming!"

june 2

The Cutting Edge of Bad Ideas

On this day:

1690
Glorious Revolution: Battle of the Boyne (as reckoned under the Julian calendar).
1770
Lexell’s Comet passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u.
1858
Joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s papers on evolution to the Linnean Society.
1863
American Civil War: the Battle of Gettysburg begins.
1879
Charles Taze Russell publishes the first edition of the religious magazine The Watchtower.
1898
Spanish-American War: the Battle of San Juan Hill is fought in Santiago de Cuba.
1916
World War I: First day on the Somme – On the first day of the Battle of the Somme 19,000 soldiers of the British Army are killed and 40,000 wounded.
2004
Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens begins at 01:12 UTC and ends at 02:48 UTC.

***

This book (All Quiet on the Western Front) is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped shells, were destroyed by the war. -Erich Maria Remarque, novelist (22 Jun 1898-1970)

***

1-877-KARS4KROOKS Report:
"The evidence also shows that children, especially needy or underprivileged children, are not the recipients of the proceeds of the donations," the legal ruling against the sham charity 1-877-KARS4KIDS states. These 'donations' fund vague enterprises and infrastructure, including gap year vacations to Israel.
You would think they would scatter in fear and shame. Yet they ran an ad just yesterday.


***


There is no essential difference between Trump and the myriad of other politicians the nation has seen. They all ignore significant politically generated problems and believe they can control other problems, thus generating new political problems to ignore.


***

The Cutting Edge of Bad Ideas

No nation or dogma threatens the average man like the sly advance of government power and those who volunteer to shoulder its burden. One technique of these 'reluctant volunteers' is that the notions they propose are so vast and so fantastic —like a silly horror movie — that no one takes them seriously until the dismissive victim is completely stuck.

Here's a typical example from de Rugy:

In early June, Piketty—the French economist whose work on inequality has made him something of a rock star even while being serially challenged for methodological errors, data imputations, and cherry-picked baselines—and his large team unveiled what can only be described as a villainous plan. It’s a comprehensive program for global managed decline dressed up in the language of climate justice and equality.

The plan is far too ambitious for most nations to accept. But given the influence of Piketty and his circle of economists on U.S. wealth taxes and prominent global policy proposals, we should take its underlying ideas seriously.

Piketty’s plan would cap gross domestic product (GDP) per capita in wealthy countries at roughly $69,000, far less than America’s current $94,430. The plan would also limit annual global economic growth to between 0 percent and 0.5 percent. Monsieur Piketty would allot only 0.115 percent annual growth to the U.S, whose GDP has expanded by more than 3 percent on average since 1930. This would hurt not just the billionaires but every American.

The plan would mandate an international three-day work week and reduce construction activity by 70 percent, manufacturing by 87 percent, and even leisure-sector activity by 58 percent. There would be massive and punishing trade actions against noncompliant countries.

It envisions a “Global Justice Fund” financed not by taxing carbon but by global wealth and income taxes. This fund would be 20 times the size of current development aid and would be administered by a new international bureaucracy answerable to heaven knows who.

Don’t be fooled by Piketty’s training as an economist. This is not economic thinking. Consider the utter inconsistency of relying on a vast stock of wealth (mostly from the U.S.) for redistribution while suffocating long-term growth to near zero. Much of the value of the assets needed to finance this scheme would be destroyed. It is also disqualifying to claim that sub-Saharan Africa will grow at 4 percent if we crush the economies that provide the capital for its investments and buy its exports.--de Rugy

So we listen to grand plans that promise equality, wealth in decline, success by cultures that have never experienced it--all run anomalously by benign holy people.

Socializing Error

On this day:
1520
Spanish conquistadors led by Hernán Cortés fight their way out of Tenochtitlan.
1559
King Henry II of France is mortally wounded in a jousting match against Gabriel de Montgomery.
1688
The Immortal Seven issue the Invitation to William (continuing the English rebellion from Rome), which would culminate in the Glorious Revolution.
1905
Albert Einstein publishes the article On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, in which he introduces special relativity.
1908
The Tunguska event occurs in remote Siberia.
1934
The Night of the Long Knives, Adolf Hitler’s violent purge of his political rivals in Germany, takes place.
1971
The crew of the Soviet Soyuz 11 spacecraft was killed when their air supply escapes through a faulty valve.
1997
The United Kingdom transfers sovereignty over Hong Kong to the People’s Republic of China.

***

"IRAN HAS REQUESTED A MEETING. IT WILL TAKE PLACE TOMORROW IN DOHA!” Trump said in screaming caps in a social media post on Monday morning.
Buuuuttt.....
Qatar’s foreign ministry says US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are in Doha, but that no meeting is currently scheduled with Iranian officials.
Iran may be the first to win a fight after being knocked out.

***

Roberto Serrano, who is the Harrison S. Kravis University Professor of Economics at Brown University, has detected a massive fraud in one of the classes he teaches, ECON 1170, an advanced undergraduate course in mathematical economics. He has conclusive evidence that at least 50 students cheated on the March midterm exam, making it the biggest known scandal at Brown and in the entire Ivy League.
The agent was AI.

***

How is a chronic defect in a program theoretically unreasonable and mathematically flawed--like Social Security-- suddenly an 'urgent' problem?

***

Socializing Error

Veronique de Rugy writes that the chief problem with government officials investing taxpayer dollars isn’t the inevitable economic inefficiency of such ‘investments’; it’s their moral corruption.

The problem is not merely that the government makes for a lousy investor. Government investing changes the moral relationship between risk, reward, and accountability.

In markets, investment is disciplined by consequences. Private investors deploy capital that belongs to them or that’s voluntarily entrusted to them. If they make bad bets, they lose money, reputation, clients, and sometimes even their careers. Prices communicate information. Profits reward value creation. Losses punish mistakes.

This discipline is central to what makes markets work. Government, however, invests under entirely different rules – rules that virtually eliminate discipline.

Government officials allocate resources extracted through taxation or borrowing backed by taxpayers. If projects fail, these officials rarely bear meaningful personal consequences. The losses, spread among unwilling taxpayers throughout the state, are socialized. The incentives, instead, are political. Success is often measured not by financial returns but by press releases, ribbon cuttings, strategic narratives, or vague, untestable claims about resilience, competitiveness, and national greatness.

Failure in government results in expansion, and they have quickly moved into 'softer' areas, like long -visioned evolution, virtue, and esthetics.

Trump's recent 'stakes' in companies perceived as nationally important should start a national evaluation of such government hubris. Ditto the government's ridiculous assessment of technological 'safety.'

AI might well be a crucial component of future culture and animosity, but a cold, rational technology is much more of a threat to governments than to the poor working guy.

Consensus

On this day:

1613
The Globe Theatre in London, England burns to the ground.
1956

The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 is signed, officially creating the United States Interstate Highway System.
1974
Isabel Perón is sworn in as the first female President of Argentina. Her husband, President Juan Peron, had delegated responsibility due to weak health and died two days later.
1974
Mikhail Baryshnikov defects from the Soviet Union to Canada while on tour with Bolshoi Ballet.
1995
Space Shuttle program: STS-71 Mission (Atlantis) docks with the Russian space station Mir for the first time.

***

“[16th century Grand Duke of Tuscany] Cosimo I de’ Medici supported art because he worried about getting into heaven as a rich man. I wish our guilty billionaires would support great classical art instead of stupid social causes.”--John Cochrane, economist at Stanford University,

***

Jill Biden's former husband was arrested for murdering his second wife. No further info is forthcoming, and the story has not pushed the Guthrie disappearance off the front page.

***

The birthright citizenship decision is expected this week.

***


Consensus

Every once in a while, when the world is bound by silliness and stupidity, it is worth hearing a smart guy sensibly explain an important thing. It is calming and edifying. Here is a section of Crichton's address to the D.C. Press Corps on a basic science concept.

"In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

...(An example is puerperal fever of pregnancy.)... One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them.

In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no. In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management.

In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory. Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra. The consensus continued to disagree with him

South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology—until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2 . Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way." --from Crichton's Aliens Cause Global Warming lecture

Sunday/Versus the World

 

On this day:
1776
American Revolutionary War: Thomas Hickey, Continental Army private and bodyguard to General George Washington, is hanged for mutiny and sedition.
1807
Second British invasion of the Río de la Plata; John Whitelock lands at Ensenada on an attempt to recapture Buenos Aires and is defeated by the locals.
1896
An explosion in the Newton Coal Company’s Twin Shaft Mine in Pittston City, Pennsylvania results in a massive cave-in that kills 58 miners.
1914
Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo by young Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, the casus belli of World War I.
1919
The Treaty of Versailles is signed in Paris, formally ending World War I between Belgium, Britain, France, Italy, the United States and allies on the one side and Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other side.
1969
Stonewall Riots begin in New York City marking the start of the Gay Rights Movement.
1987
For the first time in the military history, a civilian target was attacked by chemical weapons when Iraqi warplanes dropped mustard gas bombs on the Iranian town of Sardasht in rwo separate bombing rounds, on four residential areas.
1989
The 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević delivers the Gazimestan speech at the site of the historic battle, which is later interpreted as foreshadowing the Yugoslav Wars. 600 years.
1994
Members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult release sarin gas in Matsumoto, Japan; 7 people are killed, 660 injured.
2005
War in Afghanistan: Three U.S. Navy SEALs, 16 American Special Operations Forces soldiers, and an unknown number of Taliban insurgents are killed

***

"People talk about capitalism and socialism and communism. There’s only two kinds of economic systems: the market-driven and the government-directed. That’s it! The more you move toward a state-directed economy, the less efficient and more corrupt it becomes."--Smith

***

Psychology studies say one of the strongest predictors of everyday happiness isn’t income, status, or success — it’s the ability to be present in an ordinary moment without wishing it were something different. 

Vagueness criticisms aside, this is more interesting than it sounds. Is disinterest, imagination, idealism, or fantasy involved? Does engagement show a vital, rewarding quality?

***

In 2014, marketing veteran Amanda Lacaze took over the nearly bankrupt Australian mining company Lynas. Over a 12-year tenure marked by aggressive cost-cutting, operational fixes in Malaysia and crucial debt restructurings, she broke through China’s market monopoly and transformed the firm into a vital Western rare-earths powerhouse. Its stock price is now 15 times higher than when she arrived.

***

Sunday/Versus the World

Jesus said to his apostles:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

A harsh gospel that unlinks us with the worldly qualities that we recognize today: Family, tribalism, identity, and self-determination. And one that the evangelists repeated. It demands more than self-denial and sacrifice, a difficult message in any land. It's a spiritual demand to put the world aside.

In a violent, commercial world, that is a difficult task.

Thomas à Kempis wrote that if there were a better way to salvation than suffering, Christ would have told us.

The Vatican softens this gospel, viewing it through a hierarchical 'quality' lens, such as overlooking nepotism as a filter for leadership when better options are available.

This is Herrick close to the topic:


To Keep a True Lent

Is this a fast, to keep
The larder lean?
And clean
From fat of veals and sheep ?

Is it to quit the dish
Of flesh, yet still
To fill
The platter high with fish ?

Is it to fast an hour,
Or ragg’d to go,
Or show
A downcast look and sour?

No; ‘tis a fast to dole
Thy sheaf of wheat,
And meat,
Unto the hungry soul.

It is to fast from strife,
From old debate
And hate ;
To circumcise thy life.

To show a heart grief-rent ;
To starve thy sin,
Not bin ;
And that’s to keep thy Lent.

Robert Herrick 1648

SatStats

On this day:
1759
General James Wolfe begins the siege of Quebec.
1844
Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother Hyrum Smith, are murdered by a mob at the Carthage, Illinois jail.
1905
Battleship Potemkin uprising: sailors start a mutiny aboard the Battleship Potemkin, denouncing the crimes of autocracy, demanding liberty and an end to war.
1941
Romanian governmental forces, allies of Nazi Germany, launch one of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history in the city of Iaşi, (Romania), resulting in the murder of at least 13,266 Jews.
1950
The United States decides to send troops to fight in the Korean War.
1954
The world’s first nuclear power station opens in Obninsk, near Moscow.

***

John Stewart said you should not have to be brave to be a comic.

***

The Silurian Hypothesis asks: if an industrial civilization arose millions of years ago — say, during the Devonian or the Paleocene — would we find any trace of it today?

Ocean crust, where much sediment settles, recycles every 170 million years or so. On land, surface preservation is even rarer. “The current area of urbanization is less than 1% of the Earth’s surface,” the researchers note, and ancient surfaces that remain intact are scarcer still.

So aliens--or early great earthly civilizations--can never be disproved.

***

There are front porch concerts in Morningside this summer. Shows are July 24, Aug. 21 and Sept. 18. The September show begins at 6 p.m. Others start at 7 p.m. Corner of Jancey and Hampton.

***

Commonplace opened in the old Georgie's on Monday

***

New Data Suggests Social Security Cut Benefits “by 30.3%” for New Retirees as Trust Fund Collapse Accelerates

***

SatStats

China’s consumer spending dropped for the first time since Covid

*

As many as 30,000 English-language books have been written about Donald Trump since 2016.

*

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, who has accumulated over 1,110 days across five spaceflights and who is now, by the same calculation, approximately 0.025 seconds younger than people born at the same time as him.

*

10 years after Brexit, Britain has had 7 PMs, a population decline, and a 6%-8% shrinkage in its economy.

*

O2, Trees and Water:
Prochlorococcus, the smallest known photosynthetic organism, is so abundant that, by NOAA’s account, it alone produces up to a fifth of the oxygen in the entire biosphere. That is a larger share than all the world’s tropical rainforests combined.

These organisms do much the same thing a tree does. They use sunlight to turn carbon dioxide and water into food, releasing oxygen as a by-product.

A mature forest consumes almost all the oxygen it makes. Yadvinder Malhi, an ecosystem scientist at the University of Oxford, has put the Amazon’s net contribution to atmospheric oxygen at close to zero.

*

Fast Food
From a government survey (why the government would pay for this is unexplained), in the peculiar "most considered" field:
McDonald's was the No. 1 "most-considered" restaurant for both males and females, as well as among age groups 18-29, 30-44, and 45-64. People 65 or older said they'd most consider Wendy's as a fast-food dining option.
McDonald's was first with 39.6%, Chick-fil-A came in second at 35.5%, while Wendy's was third with 33.2%.

McDonald's was the No. 1 "most-considered" restaurant for both males and females, as well as among age groups 18-29, 30-44, and 45-64. People 65 or older said they'd most consider Wendy's as a fast-food dining option.

The survey also ranked America's top burger, sandwich, and taco spots.

Five Guys was America's favorite burger (15.5%), followed closely by Burger King (15%) and In-N-Out Burger (12.1%). Wendy's took fourth place (10.2%), while McDonald's came in fifth place (8.7%). Subway was selected as having the best deli sandwich (22.9%) and Taco Bell the best taco/burrito (30.3%).

For French fries, McDonald's earned 39.2% of the vote, followed by Five Guys, with just 9% of the vote.

Chick-fil-A was most people's favorite chicken spot (25.3%), while Pizza Hut earned first place for people's preferred pizza (19.1%). Chick-fil-A was the top-ranked fast-food brand based on quality, while McDonald's did not make the top 10.

Wendy's (21.6%) ranked No. 1 based on value, while McDonald's came in at No. 8 (12.5%). i

30% eat fast food at least once a week, according to the report.

Among weekly fast-food eaters, 55% are male and 45% are female; 49% are middle-income (earning 75%-200% of the median income); and 51% are younger than 45 years old, the study found."Value and discounts are the biggest drivers for weekly fast-food diners, followed by a clean dining area," the report said.

*

The U.S. national debt crossed $39 trillion on March 18, 2026. The U.S. had already suffered credit downgrades from all three major ratings agencies — S&P in 2011, Fitch in 2023, and Moody’s in May 2025. The dollar’s share of global foreign exchange reserves had fallen to 56.9%, its lowest level since 1995 and down from a peak of 72% in 2001.