Rage, eating

They came for the Ben & Jerry's and I did nothing, for I am lactose intolerant.  They came for the Toblerone and I did not protest because I just don't like it.  Then they came for the tacos...

In politics you know the enemy has nothing when they attack your taste in food.  Historians will long remember the day when America learned that Barack Obama was known to put mustard on a hamburger.  "Is he really American?" asked people who never thought he was American to begin with.  "Impeach!" cried some, clutching baskets of peaches.  Now it's tacos.

Kamala Harris and Tim Walz made a humorous campaign video where they played off Minnesota's reputation as a culinary slide zone infamous for lutefisk and casserole.  "Listen, I'm just not much of a spice guy," the governor confessed when the vice president kidded him about liking "white guy tacos" with tuna and mayonnaise.  "Black pepper is the top of the spice level in Minnesota, you know?"  It was clearly a joke between two people who actually understand humor -- not making fun of the disabled or body-shaming the obese but enjoying each other and undermining stereotypes.  Guess what?  The right not only took it literally but accused them of racism.  "Walz is being used as a clown to mock white people," said David Marcus of Fox News, while Ben Shapiro offered a history lesson:  "Europeans liked spices so much that they literally got involved in several hundred years of war in order to determine control of the spice trade."  Also, before refrigeration it was literally the only way to preserve food.  The court of Emperor Charles V was not lining up to take the one chip challenge.   

Then someone who knows how to use the Google found Tim Walz's recipe for Turkey Taco Hot Dish, full of green chilis and garlic powder and winner of the Al Franken 2016 Hot Dish-Off.  A liar as well as a racist! they shouted.  Call now and for just fourteen cents a day, you can help the humor-challenged live a more fulfilling life.  We'll send you this tote bag showing Trump posing with a fast food spread (in the original Styrofoam) for the national champion Clemson Tigers.

Having lost its mind about "white guy tacos," the right had to go find it and get ready to lose it again.  Kamala Harris sent a fundraising email describing election night 2016 when she won a seat in the Senate.  "I went home and I sat on the couch* with a family-size bag of nacho Doritos.  I did not share one chip with anybody.  Not even Doug.  I just watched the TV with utter shock and dismay.  Two things are true eight years later:  I still love Doritos and we still have not stopped fighting."  I hear you, sister.  A large box of tomato and basil Wheat Thins mysteriously vanished in my living room, along with half a layer cake.  The next three days were...uncomfortable, though not as bad as the next four years.

It looks like an entire Sean Hannity show was devoted to this outrage.  Elisabeth Hasselbeck was beside herself:  "That's the commander-in-chief, potentially, that's the emotional response of the leader of the free world is to binge-eat a bag of Dorritos?  Are you kidding me?  Can you imagine Putin, how he deals with things?  Chugging down a bag of Sour Patch Kid because he's depressed about something not going his way?"  Calm down, dear, we'll have Tulsi ask the next time she calls him.  What did Putin reach for when he saw these pictures of his troops in Kursk?

I'm told he doesn't drink but it would take more than kvass to get through that.  (I've had it.  It tastes like liquid rye bread.)

Much has been written about Trump's insistence on incinerated steak and his love of fast food, which he seems to think cannot be tampered with because it's mass-produced.  If a man of 78 eats like a 12-year-old repeating the sixth grade, that's fine with me.  It's somewhat more worrying that he eats in front of the television and according to one witness, flings food at it when displeased.  "It wasn't just launching the food and the plates and the porcelain at the wall," according to Cassidy Hutchinson.  "It was sometimes just flipping the tablecloth," as when he heard Attorney General Barr say there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.  That was the day Hutchinson herself grabbed a towel and cleaned ketchup off the wall, which was not one of her responsibilities as an aide to Mark Meadows.  How many think the staff were happy when this hooligan and Mrs. "Fooking Christmas Decorations" slipped out the back on January 20, 2021?

One final note:   Should ex-Speaker Kevin McCarthy visit the Oval Office during some future Harris administration (and I can't think of any reason he would), do not under any circumstances offer him a cookie.  Joe Biden did that and McCarthy never got over it.

*J.D. Vance did not fuck a couch.