Suppose, however, you just want a burger and fries, not social purposes and relationships? You might prefer Five Guys or Shake Shack, where the burgers taste fine even without the condiment of community uplift. Five Guys and Shake Shack are pipsqueaks, with about 1,000 and 63 restaurants, respectively. McDonald’s, which has more than 36,000 — 14,300 in the United States — will open more than 1,000 new ones this year.

Although McDonald’s burgers ranked 21st in a recent Consumer Reports survey of 21 brands, this $81 billion company will not founder because of the small but growing cohort of customers who like the burger equivalent of microbrews. But another behemoth, Budweiser, is experiencing McDonald’s-like difficulties…

Progressives are forever telling us who is and who is not on “the right side of history.” Many fastidious progressives deplore, and try to control (witness San Francisco’s current crusade against soft drinks), other people’s food choices. It will be instructive watching the progressive burger company try to persuade its chosen constituents to stop at McDonald’s on the way home from Whole Foods, their environmentally responsible, because reusable, shopping bags overflowing with kale.