A Hot Dog for the 4th!

The hot dog is in decline in America, writes Paul Lukas at Bloomberg, and one thinks, “What isn’t?” What institution, anyway. If everything were not in decline, then what would there be for journalists to write about (see Andrew Ferguson on George Packer and Haynes Johnson) and what would politicians have to campaign about?

This faith in decline is an indispensable element of the Zeitgeist and largely a bore. Some things aren’t as good as they used to be and some are better. And some things haven’t changed much because, well, because they can’t get any better. The American hot dog belongs in this category and if our countrymen are eating fewer of them … well, their loss.