Hamburgers and Pickups

The speakers at this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, including Donald Trump, took a lot of cheap but effective shots at the Democratic Party, especially the Green New Deal, the individual components of which are actually quite popular but the totality of which is political suicide thanks to the idiotic way it was rolled out.  One speaker framed quite clearly the issue for Americans who may have trouble with the Green New Deal because of its call for regulations on cattle ranching and its call for more fuel-efficient cars.  The Democrats, he said, are trying to take way your hamburgers and pickup trucks.

This claim is as asinine as the Green New Deal's botched roll-out, but, simplified for a mass audience, it has resonance.  No food could be more American than the hamburger (even though it originated in Germany), and no car is more American than the pickup truck, a manly vehicle meant to haul big stuff in a country where everything big matters.  Ford's recent commercial showing a parade of past and current Ford pickups hauling everything imaginable, including, tellingly, a trailer carrying a Bob's Big Boy sign, to the sound of Jerry Reed's 1977 country-and-western classic "East Bound and Down", sums up America better than any rap video from Donald Glover can. 

The Democrats need a rejoinder to Republican scare tactics aimed at the Green New Deal.  The Green New Deal may advocate policies to make beef production more environmentally sustainable but no one is being asked to give up beef, be it hamburgers or sirloin steaks.  And there'll still be pickups for people who need them, and a lot of folks out in the American heartland do need them, as well as carpenters and handymen in the big metropolitan areas on the coasts.  But the Green New Deal recognizes that most urban and suburban car buyers don't need a large truck, and, based on the fact that buying habits and living patterns are affected by government policy, seeks to encourage Americans who'd be better off with something more sensible than a Silverado or an F-150 to buy a smaller car or take more mass transit.

The only problem is, you can't put that explanation on bumper sticker.

As for me, I mostly eat hamburgers made out of poultry meat, and I don't need to tell you again that my car is a Volkswagen Golf - as European as a Ford F-150 is American - so I can adapt to a more environmentally friendly economic policy easily.  But I'm not like most Americans - something I've been reminded of in no uncertain terms - and if the Democrats have any shot of regaining the White House, they have to sell the Green New Deal to its skeptics rather than preach to the converted.  Too bad that is not going to happen.  While the Republicans have a perfectly succinct argument against it - "They're going to take away your hamburgers and pickups!" - the Democrats won't be able to come up with anything nearly as catchy.  Maybe that's because they screwed up the introduction of the Green New Deal so thoroughly, from its cow-fart references to suggestions of an undersea rail line to Hawaii (all graphite and glitter, apparently) to supporting people who don't want to work to the very fact that much of this was first-draft stuff that never should have gotten out, that they're stuck with defending the indefensible.  I'm sure that the Green New Deal's backers think that, with time and tact, they can make their plan in its totality popular with American voters.  Of course, they are flat-out dead wrong.  Because what's true of new vehicles is also true of policy proposals - you only get one chance to launch.   

And the launch of the all-new Chevrolet Silverado (above) has been pretty impressive!

So, Democrats, are you going to prove me wrong and sell the Green New Deal effectively?  Are you gonna do what I say can't be done? 'Cause you've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.  

Which One's Pink?

In the same country where foodstuff advertisers are able to talk people into buying artificially flavored and colored "fruit" cereals for their children but not into buying muesli for themselves (or their kids), it shouldn't surprise anyone that the U.S. Department of Agriculture would try to get away with something like this. Even as the President's wife is trying to get children to eat healthier food, his Agriculture Secretary (that would be Tom Vilsack, the would-be 2008 presidential candidate whose name got ridicule from Jon Stewart and inattention from everyone else) is planning to purchase seven million pounds of slaughterhouse beef scraps and cutting waste treated with ammonia hydroxide - unofficially called "pink slime" - for school lunches.

The food industry has been in the business of feeding pink slime to unsuspecting American consumers for years. Several fast-food restaurants had been using this meat by-product in its hamburgers, but when noted celebrity chef and noted intelligent foreigner Jamie Oliver demonstrated how this "meat" is processed, Taco Bell, McDonald's, and Burger King all agreed to stop selling food made of pink slime. Why the USDA would allow this stuff to be used in school lunches, especially in the wake of its own suggested menu changes to the school lunch program that would increase the use of whole grains, fruit, and vegetables - these would be the first such changes since 1997 - is baffling.

Because the woman who pushes healthier eating is surnamed Obama, and because the chef who brought pink slime to people's attention is a Brit, it's easy to understand why right-wingers think that being against junk food is like being against America. Harder to understand is why anyone of any political persuasion would allow children to eat this gunk. Can we at least agree that children shouldn't eat as their midday meal a sandwich made out of processed meat normally used in pet food? If Rush Limbaugh doesn't want the government telling him what he should or shouldn't eat, fine. But why should that same government force a substance best described as the Velveeta of beef on our kids?

Mmm, pink slime - you want fries with that?

It's ironic that this "pink slime" is used in pet food, when it isn't even fit for a dog.