The culture wars in the United States are reaching a critical mass at the moment, with the nation’s weaponised conservative media trying valiantly to grasp any little thing to help distract from the Black Lives Matter protest action, which remains on-going, peaceful, widespread, and well-attended, despite the headlines disappearing. Today, that maelstrom of discourse is focused on a viral video, reportedly posted by a US cop from the state of Georgia, who tearfully describes an experience at a McDonald’s where she didn’t get a McMuffin in a timely manner. We’re entering some truly batshit dumb territory here, folks. Best to hold on to something.
The story goes thusly: on Monday (US time), a woman named Stacey Talbert – reportedly a Deputy Sheriff for the McIntosh County Sheriff’s Department in rural Georgia – posted a Facebook Live video in which she tearfully recounted the tale of how she pre-ordered a McDonald’s breakfast, was not given it immediately upon arrival, and then had some sort of existential meltdown in the handful of minutes it took for her food to arrive.
After an employee approached her car with just the coffee portion of her meal – which included an Egg McMuffin and a hash brown – Talbert states in the video that she said “Don’t bother with the food because right now I’m too nervous to take it.”
“It doesn’t matter how many hours I’ve been up. It doesn’t matter what I’ve done for anyone. Right now I’m too nervous to take a meal from McDonald’s because I can’t see it being made,” a teary Talbert asserts, before stating “I don’t know what’s going on with people nowadays, but please, just give us a break!”
That video has since been viewed some 7.8 million times on Facebook alone, with well over 200,000 shares. Talbert’s accompanying caption reads “Please share because no one should feel like this. Law enforcement or not, this is truly how we feel.”
The video subsequently migrated across to Twitter yesterday, in a post that has gone viral and attracted all kinds of scorn.
https://twitter.com/tkag2020_ann/status/1273075677454098436
Curiously enough, the owners of the McDonald’s in question confirmed that Talbert was not deliberately refused service, and that she was even complimentary of the staff member that brought her the coffee.
Speaking to Buzzfeed News US, the owners stated “We are happy to report that the officer was never denied service and also shared positive feedback on the employee with whom she interacted.”
Following the Twitter post, there was some conjecture that Talbert may have been lying about her status as an active police member, citing another viral post from a similarly named police department that distanced themselves from Talbert.
That McIntosh County Sheriff’s Department happens to be in Oklahoma, not Georgia where this incident took place. It appears, for all intents and purposes, that Talbert is indeed a serving Deputy Sheriff.
The reaction to the video, understandably, is a screaming bloody mess. Conservative figureheads have leapt all over the video, claiming it as a frontline example of the apparent suffering US police departments are experiencing at the moment. That class includes, but is certainly not limited to, US President Donald Trump’s favoured son, Donald Jr.
🚨🚨🚨Disgusting what’s going on right now. https://t.co/nRIrV47YVK
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) June 17, 2020
Conversely, the video also sparked comment from people quite rightfully questioning Talbert’s ability to perform her very serious job at all, given that a slightly late breakfast tipped her off the deep end.
the mcmuffin cop video cannot be real. my mind cannot accept the premise that someone who has a total breakdown victim moment over the universal experience of a fast food place forgetting & screwing up their order, is also the same person who can kill me cause they were scared
— Bobby Lewis (@revrrlewis) June 17, 2020
People rallying around McMuffin Cop are somehow looking right past the fact that she doesn’t even claim anything happened to her food, just that she’s so panicked and anxious she can’t stop IMAGINING someone might be doing something
— Tom Scocca (@tomscocca) June 17, 2020
I think our first response to this video should be to question whether or not a cop who’s having a breakdown over a McDonald’s english muffin is stable enough to handle a weapon & perform well in a high stress job https://t.co/30hrWBNrht
— Alizɑ (@alizakv_) June 17, 2020
What to make of all this? Hard to say. It’s very convenient obfuscation for the desperate status-quo American press to fill untold hours on while social upheaval continues behind their willingly turned backs. It’s a telling moment that ground level US police forces can’t handle even the barest perceived slight against them without retreating into perhaps the most deeply unearned victim complex in human history.
But above all else it’s a world class whinge over sweet fuck all. That it’s gone this far is just how things work nowadays. For better or most definitely for worse, there’s nothing any of us can do about that.
