Popeye’s, the national fried chicken chain with a Louisiana flair and some of the only good fried seafood in fast food, has released a new chicken sandwich. It is a good chicken sandwich. The reviews are almost universally favorable (flavorable?).

That should be the end of the story. A chicken fast-food chain has released a new sandwich, and it is good. However, we live in America. And as American as fried chicken is, just as American is the urge of media and social media alike to make everything political. You already know where this is headed.

Via the New Yorker:

For some diners, put off by Chick-fil-A’s right-leaning corporate politics and widely known funding of anti-gay activism, Popeyes appeals as a chicken sandwich with less overt moral compromise. (The Advocate, the L.G.B.T.-interest magazine, ran a story about the sandwich under the headline “More Flavor, Less Homophobia.”)

That’s right, everyone. We have to mention Chick-Fil-A.

Chick-Fil-A has constantly been under fire because of its owners, traditional Christians who have donated to traditional family causes, including those that have a stance against gay marriage. It gives its workers Sundays off, and they make sure to be courteous to their customers. As a result of their sandwiches and their customer service, they are the number one fast-food chain in America.

It’s not number one because of the owners’ political beliefs. As much as people want to make it about that, it would appear to not be about that at all. The sandwiches are objectively good. So is Popeye’s new sandwich.

However, a new chicken sandwich on the scene that wasn’t just chicken strips on bread means that we must make it about competition in the chicken sandwich industry. As the above quote says, it’s about breaking the “hegemony” of Chick-Fil-A.

What is missing here is the fact that, while Popeye’s spicy sauce is delicious and Chick-Fil-A is pure bliss in its simplicity, there is a Louisiana-based business that is the true king, because its sauce is the only sauce aside from Alabama-style white sauce that is perfect on chicken. That is Raising Cane’s, a chicken strip franchise you see across parts of the south.

Raising Cane’s gives you strips, the sauce, crinkle-cut fries, buttery Texas toast, and coleslaw. Yes, you have to pay for extra sauce, but you should do it anyway and mix the leftover sauce in the coleslaw to truly know what Heaven feels like.

Oh, and Cane’s has a chicken sandwich, too.

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This post was not paid for nor written by Raising Cane’s, Inc. The views and opinions of the writer are solely his own and just so you know he had to pay for his Raising Cane’s last night and it was delicious.