The Boycott of Chuck Edwards' Fast Food

 

According to reporting by George Fabe Russell for the Hendersonville Times-News, a coalition of activist groups are so upset with Congressman Chuck Edwards (CD11) over his vote for the Big Beautiful Bill and his subsequent shrugging off of the pain of thousands thrown off SNAP food benefits -- so upset that they're taking aim at his solar plexus, his profit from seven McDonald's he owns in Hendersonville, Brevard, and Canton. A coalition called the Asheville Fights Back Network plans picketing and boycott of the McDonald’s on 4 Seasons Boulevard in Hendersonville today and again on Sunday, according to a Nov. 24 news release. The Asheville Fights Back Network is made up of Indivisible Asheville, the Western Circle of the NC Poor People’s Campaign, Good Trouble WNC, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and a marching protest band called Brass Your Heart. This coalition has a sound and a flavor!

“He’s making money off of us while he’s withholding food stamps. He voted to cut SNAP, he voted to cut the health insurance subsidies, he voted to spend so much money on chasing down immigrants,” NC Poor People’s Campaign leader Leslie Boyd said, announcing the economic boycott. Another rep from the Poor People's Campaign pointed out that the cuts to SNAP and the ending of Affordable Care Act subsidies would affect 40% of Edwards’ constituents, in a district still recovering from Helene. “We see what’s happening in Washington right now as an emergency. People are going to go hungry. People are going to go without healthcare. It's a crisis in the making,” said an organizer of the boycott. 

Reps of Asheville Fights Back have met with Edwards and have come away concluding that a well-to-do businessman just can't wrap his head around the realities of poverty and helplessness -- the real impact of cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill. (According to one of the leaders of the protest, “One thing about Chuck Edwards, he does keep his doors open.” He's also held some town halls that got contentious. That's brave and admirable of a Rep.) The economic boycott of his business is meant to hurt, to get his mind a little more focused on the human cost of his partisanship in blindly following the party line.