Get the latest tech news

The Year of McDonald's

In 2024, we watched American life unfold beneath the golden arches—from Trump’s drive-through stunt to Luigi Mangione’s final hash brown.

But it also shows that while he should be a member of the front-row, given his education and wealth, he’s not, because such people despise him for many of the same reasons they look down on you: for what he eats, how he talks, for what he believes in, and for how he arrives at those beliefs, which isn’t by spending years reading through approved syllabi, but having gone out into the world and learned from it, one mistake after the next. “So what are MAGA die-hards and faux-centrist Trump apologists talking about when they praise his drive-through stint as ‘amazing and hilarious’?” Obviously, the article didn’t actually pose this question to any normal American, and instead just started quoting statistics. These communities are the flowers growing between the cracks of the cement parking lot: a reminder that life survives, and often thrives, in the harshest environments, such as the modern world—which, though impressively built on the back of science, and despite being very wealthy, is still a pretty harsh, cold, and despondent place.

Get the Android app