Marinara Sauce, the Economy, & John McCain

Marinara sauce! My Sicilian grandmother’s recipe! The latest onslaught in my ongoing battle to use up all those goddam tomatoes!

In case you are wondering, it’s called “marinara” because it was first made by Neapolitan sailors who decided to smash up some of those weird red fruits they found in the New World to use on their spaghetti.

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I’ve been avoiding writing about politics because I’ve been avoiding thinking about politics. As in: I would rather stick my fingers in my ears and sing La la la! at the top of my voice than venture an opinion about the outcome of the upcoming midterm elections.

Is my Cassandra complex showing?

I know polls are predicting a Democratic wave, but you’d think the 2016 Presidential election would have taught Democrats to be cautious about polls or at least to augment them with astrology or haruspicy (your new word for the day!)

Yes, everybody outside the Base—that 30% of America’s population that lives in remote wooden houses with broken porches surrounded by dead refrigerators, gutted washing machines and Confederate flags—dislikes Trump, but here’s the thing: The economy is awfully strong. The bully tactics did seem to work with the NAFTA renegotiations, and the stock market is booming.

Of course, I don’t trust a single one of the statistics coming out of government agencies right now. I’m a policy geek; I was trained to manipulate statistics. I don’t believe for a single second, for example, that second-quarter GDP rate in the U.S. was 4.2%. Auto sales are falling; the housing market is falling. Those are the markers I look at.

But consumer confidence is higher than it has been in a couple of years.

And I gotta think that when Trump waves his fat little finger and sez, If I’m impeached, it’s all gonna go away!, independent voters are likely to get nervous. Sure, Trump is a racist prick who only managed to last two minutes in the sack bonking sexy porn star with the Double D titZ. Nevertheless, your 401(k) is probably 20% higher than it was in 2016.

Polarized voters who identify with one party or another may vote from conviction, but I think independent voters vote from their wallets.

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I’m also a bit perplexed about how John McCain has metamorphosed into a Hero of the Left.

I gotta think the reason is because The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Don’t get me wrong: There are things to admire about John McCain. He exhibited amazing grace under pressure—the prime Hemingway virtue!—and I approve of his efforts on behalf of campaign reform. His affection for bipartisan dialogue harkens back to those kinder, gentler pre-Gingrich days—though one does suspect he did it to look prettier for the cameras.

BUT.

He sold himself to Charles Keating in the late 1980s. God knows how McCain managed to wiggle out of a corruption indictment on that one.

McCain was in favor of a constitutional amendment banning abortion. He argued that the most expeditious way to support the George Bush tax cuts was by reducing social security.

There has never been an opportunity for America to bomb brown people in some remote corner of the world that McCain didn’t support. In fact, he was Bush’s most vociferous cheerleader throughout the Iraq War.

Worst of all, in my never-humble opinion, McCain gave a platform to Sarah Palin, thus legitimatizing the rise of white partisanship (I won’t call it “nationalism”) in the U.S. once again.

I would hardly call him a hero. So all these emotional displays from people whom you’d think would know their history better are a bit puzzling.