It’s the Cream Cheese, Stupid

By BARRY FRIEDMAN

My rabbi once told me that sarcasm is a terrible parenting technique.  nnIt’s not a great way to win political arguments, either.

But sometimes it’s all you got.

Which nevertheless brings me to cream cheese.

According to Lancasterfarming.com, there was a shortage last year, along with other dairy products, caused by a decreased labor force, low supplies of ingredients, transportation and logistical problems, and … a cyberattack aimed at a Wisconsin cream-cheese company that eventually had to shut down its operations …”

When you can’t count on cream cheese, what is there left to believe in?

Why bring this up?

Remember my friend Joe, the owner of my favorite bagel shop, who helped remove a downed tree from my backyard during July’s storm in Tulsa? (“When the Chainsaw Breaks,” 8/1/23 TPP)

He sells a lot of cream cheese. 

He’s not happy about the cost.

He blames President Biden and the economy.

It’s the cream cheese, stupid.

You’d like to think now that Donald Trump is facing a combined 91 federal and state charges, ranging from stealing government documents and planning to overturn an election to paying off a topless dancer to keep her quiet, Joe wouldn’t be so vexed about the price of a bagel and schmear.

You’d be wrong.

“Everything I buy costs more,” said Joe. “This never happened under Trump. The economy sucks.”

Sort of.

With inflation down to 4% this year and unemployment at 3.7%, the so-called misery index, which combines these two rates, is at 7.7%. In January 2021, Trump’s last month in office (but not if you ask him), the index — inflation at 1.4% and unemployment at 6.3% — was also at 7.7%.

This gets tricky. I don’t own a restaurant, I don’t have employees, and I don’t have to deal with passing along my costs to irate customers. Joe insists he had an easier time running his business under Trump than he does under Biden.

What do you do with that?

I would hope you’d conclude that a little extra for breakfast isn’t the end of the republic, but insurrection is; still, if your world view is not the survival of Ukraine or an independent judiciary and you were shut down during COVID, which Joe called “bullsh*t,” Trump was the good old days.

(And you need to be suffering from selective amnesia not to remember that many of those COVID protocols were set during the Trump administration.)

An announcement on a flight recently reminded me to respect the mask-wearing choices of fellow passengers.

Don’t want to wear a mask, fine; don’t want to support Ukraine, fine.

Problem is, at some point, if you believe your own science and have no desire to live in a community of nations, Adolf Hitler’s great-grandson is running the show and your kids are paralyzed from the neck down because you didn’t insist they get the polio vaccine.

Whatever you think of Trump, his supporters, like Joe, seem willing to forgive his excesses.

And, anyway, Hillary Clinton belongs in jail. 

“For what?” I asked.

“Oh, come on.”

It’s an unsettling, sophomoric refrain.

Outrage trumps facts.

(Sorry. The joke was right there.) 

“The whole thing is rigged against him,” said Joe.

“Joe, you can’t honestly believe that four separate investigations, some federal, some state, into Trump were all part of some conspiracy?”

“Yes, I can.”

“But if any one of those investigations were dropped because of the enormity of the other three, that would be the conspiracy. And all those women who claimed he molested them, harassed them, they were part of it too?”

“Well, I’m sure he did that,” he said.

To Democrats, Trump’s excesses are an affront to democracy; to Republicans, they’re peccadilloes.

For Joe, illegal fentanyl-carrying Ecuadoreans are storming the border — he’s not that worked up over Trump strong-arming Volodymyr Zelenskyy for dirt on Hunter Biden.

These days, the GOP base views Jan. 6th the way Holocaust deniers spin the Holocaust.

Deniers of the latter will tell you it didn’t happen, but Jews sure deserved it.

Deniers of the former will tell you Trump never encouraged the attack on the US Capitol, but Congress sure deserved it. 

“How can you like Biden?” Joe asked.

“His issues are my issues. I’m not embarrassed every day to have him as president.”

“He can’t even bend down to tie his own shoes. And Kamala?”

“What does she do that bothers you so much? What would you like her to do?”

“Oh, come on!”

It’s laughable but not funny. Look at the paltry number of GOP voters who won’t vote for Trump under any circumstances. Look at the GOP presidential candidates who promise to support the nominee of the party, even if it’s an indicted ex-president. A couple of bad economic quarters and Biden falls down the stairs of a parked Air Force One, the GOP wins in 2024. 

Donald Trump wins. 

And America loses.

We’ll deserve it.

One more quick story. I was recently being interviewed on a podcast about a book I had written about my father — not about politics — when the interviewer said she had been following me here at The Progressive Populist.

“Why don’t you like Trump?” she asked.

“I’ll just give you the headline: Trump tried to disenfranchise the votes of 84 million Americans who didn’t vote for him. He tried to steal democracy.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said on the air, “but I like him anyway.”

Rabbi, help!

Barry Friedman is an essayist, political columnist, petroleum geology reporter — quit laughing — and comedian living in Tulsa, Okla. His latest book, “Jack Sh*t: Volume One: Voluptuous Bagels and other Concerns of Jack Friedman” has just been released. In addition, he is the author of “Road Comic,” “Funny You Should Mention It,” “Four Days and a Year Later,” “The Joke Was On Me,” and a novel, “Jacob Fishman’s Marriages.” See barrysfriedman.com and friedmanoftheplains.com.

From The Progressive Populist, October 15, 2023

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