My office decorations are mostly standard-issue: pictures of my family, a diploma, a couple of concert posters to trick people into thinking I’m fun. But no one notices them at first, as everyone’s eyes inevitably go to the portrait above my desk.
It’s impossible to miss: a big, professionally-framed picture of a Joey Chestnut, smiling triumphantly behind a pile of hot dogs after reclaiming the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest championship from Takeru Kobayashi on July 4, 2007.
Joey came into my possession courtesy of my first boss in Washington, who in the midst of an office redecorating effort reluctantly decided to part with what he called a symbol of American triumph.
I think about that every time I glance up in the middle of the day and see the champ looking back at me, tongue sticking out and eyes wide with the thrill of victory. So you can imagine my disappointment when I learned China had bought Nathan’s.
On Thursday, Smithfield announced that it would purchase the iconic hot dog franchise for $450 million. Of course, “Smithfield” isn’t really Smithfield anymore. The Virginia-based meat producer was itself purchased in 2013 by the Shuanghui Group, which has since renamed itself the more innocuous sounding WH Group.
The WH Group is a Chinese company through and through, which means it is, for all intents and purposes, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party. Its leadership is full of CCP bigwigs, who have put the company at the forefront of China’s efforts to purchase American farmland — a major national security threat. At its peak, WH Group owned around 150,000 acres of American land across 29 states.
WH Group has reduced its American land holdings in response to the Trump administration’s push to ban Chinese companies from buying up American farms. But it still has around 85,000 acres of this country in its possession, a collection to which it can now add Nathan’s original Coney Island location, still standing where it was built in 1916.
It’s fitting that the first Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest of Zohran Mamdani’s mayoralty will be sponsored by the CCP. America’s biggest foe wrapping its tentacles around a symbol of American freedom founded by a Polish Jew. Ms. Rachel must be thrilled.
It never ends well when foreigners take over American institutions — just look what happened when the Belgians bought Anheuser-Busch.
When my old boss called the Joey Chestnut picture a portrait of American triumph, he wasn’t just talking about an American reclaiming the title from a Japanese competitor. He was talking about an American dominating in an extremely American pastime, at a quintessentially American location, on the day we celebrate American independence.
Nathan’s is about as American as it gets. Nathan Handwerker opened his Brooklyn stand in 1916, four years after coming to America. He gained a foothold by selling cheaper products than his competitor and grew his little stand into a global empire. By the time Major League Baseball named Nathan’s its official hot dog in 2017, they had already become synonymous with ball games, barbecues, and the American dream.
When at the height of the Second World War E.B. White wrote that democracy was “the mustard on the hot dog,” he was almost certainly envisioning one of Nathan’s Famous kosher-style franks.
Even liberalism’s court stenographer, Aaron Sorkin, understands the centrality of Nathan’s to the American image. In a 2002 episode of “The West Wing,” the White House Chief of Staff defends the president’s decision to assassinate a terrorist leader by telling his emissary: “To sweep all fifty states, the President would only need to do two things: blow the sultan’s brains out in Times Square, then walk across the street to Nathan’s and buy a hot dog.”
It’s impossible to watch that scene now and not think of President Donald Trump’s now famous declaration that he could shoot someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue and not lose voters. It’s also hard to think that our first outer borough president relishes the site of China taking over a beloved American institution.
The overarching goal of Trump’s political career has been to reverse American decline by any means necessary. He’s touched on this aim in merely every speech he’s ever given, including his Second Inaugural Address:
From this day forward, our country will flourish and be respected again all over the world. We will be the envy of every nation, and we will not allow ourselves to be taken advantage of any longer. During every single day of the Trump administration, I will, very simply, put America first.
Whether striking narcoterrorists or purchasing Greenland, Trump has shown he’ll stop at nothing to revive American greatness. Keeping Nathan’s in American hands seems like an easy way to advance his America First agenda and put the Red Dragon at bay. Surely it doesn’t hurt that Trump once called Nathan’s chairman Howard Lorber one of his two best friends.
So come on, Mr. President. What’s one more volley in the trade wars if it means saving an American institution? Imagine that swooping green logo towering over the first American hot dog stand in Nuuk. This is our time for choosing.
