Anticipation

Anticipation

Do you remember that Heinz Ketchup commercial with the ketchup moving down the neck of the bottle in slow motion towards the waiting hamburger? They used the 1971 Carly Simon song Anticipation from her hit album of the same name. I imagine no one but Carly thinks about that song any more without thinking about Heinz Ketchup. Interesting factoid, we have all wondered our whole lives whether its ketchup or catsup and what’s up with that naming disparity. To begin with, I have found nothing that generically distinguishes ketchup and catsup from one another. There is as much difference between Heinz ketchup and Hunts ketchup, formulaically as there is between Heinz ketchup and Del Monte Catsup. Actually, Heinz used to use catsup until it switched to ketchup in the late Nineteenth Century. Del Monte stuck with catsup, but even they succumbed and change their label to say ketchup in 1988 (so, if you have some Del Monte catsup…THROW IT OUT!). Most catsup is a tad spicier than ketchup since it usually has cayenne in its ingredient list, but otherwise they are both all about tomatoes, vinegar, salt, onions, sugar and cinnamon along with other minor spices.

I didn’t start out thinking I was going to write about condiments today, but its a testament to the Daniel Brian Agency that came up with the ad campaign that I still can’t write the word anticipation without Carly Simon ringing in my ears and hankering for something to put ketchup on. By the way, the ad that preceded the anticipation ad was the “Slowest Ketchup in the West” ad and was followed by the Ketchup kid (putting ketchup on a hot dog – yeech) featuring none other than a grade-school Matt Le Blanc of Friends fame. I started out thinking that here we are on Monday, November 2nd and we have been waiting for this day for at least four years. As the pundits say, this election is simply not about policy or ideas and is all about personality. What I cannot fathom is how so many people (one would be too many for me) can identify with the Trump persona. Who wants to be stupid, crass and uncaring? Who aspires to narcissism and bigotry? I know that power is appealing to people, but Trump is not powerful by virtue of what he has done, but by what he has been able to fool people into thinking he would do or has done. His personal wealth has been meaningfully debunked and his business acumen has been the subject of enormous debunking, so what is it that makes people want to aspire to be like Trump other than the childish secret longing we might all have to get away with anything we want to.

We are waiting for our friends to arrive from Sonoma. They are like-minded as us politically and just as anxious as we are about this election cycle. I keep hearing that the fundamentals speak very strongly, that unemployment is at a high 8%, that over 230,000 Coronavirus deaths show no sign of abating, that healthcare remains as important an issue as it ever was and the evidence of Republican efforts to strip away coverage for pre-existing conditions is crystal-clear, and that Trump has NEVER had an approval rating over 45% (which is unprecedented for a sitting president, much less one that was in office via election versus succession). But despite all of that, the level of anxiety about an adverse pro-Trump outcome remains high for two reasons; he pulled a rabbit out of the hat in 2016 and is feared to be capable of the same magic in 2020, and the distaste among the majority (and in actuality more than just the electoral majority since many who vote for him openly say they don’t like the man) for another four years of Trump is unfathomably high. I heard Rachel Maddow tonight say that the country already has the burden to make excuses for its unknowing dalliance with authoritarianism by virtue of Trump’s four-year term, but that the country might never be able to recover its image for righteousness and leadership if we collectively vote for another four years of this clearly authoritarian way of life. Put that way, it is very hard to imagine people allowing that to happen. Accidents happen, but intentional self-loathing is too hard to accept.

Nevertheless, our Sonoma friends are nervous and we are nervous. Kim exhibits her nervousness by turning off the news and especially doing it when Donald Trump, or Mike Pence for that matter, is on screen. I have reacted to this anxiety by declaring that the election will be a Blue Wave landslide to everyone who will listen. I have declared my belief in prior blogs and this is the last time I can make such a prediction, because starting with the next blog post I will have at least partial poll data and thus have to shift from calling it a prediction to calling it a forecast, which implies higher confidence informed by data. This is truly my belief as to the outcome, but I cannot deny that I also understand the power of positive thinking and I find nothing to be gained by being a worry-wart at this stage of the game. We have given money to every race and every candidate we could find with a worthy fight and several that didn’t have snowball chances in hell (my acquaintance in Utah that is running as a Democrat).

But this has now gone to another level. My old friend Russ called me today to tell me that he remembered that he owed me a prediction before the election (he touts himself as having an excellent political crystal ball). Russ has been an active and involved Republican operative for many years. I call him a Jack Kemp Republican even though he likes to declare himself a libertarian (I tell him I don’t buy that nomenclature slide). He was on the McCain inner circle and I even donated to McCain in the pre-Palin days (I have always had great respect for veterans and especially ones like McCain that paid such a big price as an honorable POW). He was on Romney’s team and he claims to have even been on the Trump team (though I have told him to reconsider that claim since I believe it is a stretch anyway…he was certainly not much involved, even though he is good friends with Anthony Scaramucci and many big Trump donors). Russ flippantly told me he could not call this election because it was too close and he himself was flip-flopping day-by-day, with his pro-Trump side rising today in particular.

That made me snap. I told Russ that this was no longer a casual or “fun” matter to me and that jabs at my blue commitment were no longer welcome. I had one of those out-of-body reactions where I ranted at length, while sitting on my patio, worried that my neighbors were going to hear and I fear many of them do not share my views. Russ poked the bear more by asking what I would do if Trump won. I started by saying that Republican leadership in Congress (assuming there is any left after they get voted out tomorrow) would likely lay down the law with Trump threatening him with impeachment if he didn’t tow the line to assure a future of some sort for the Republican Party (which we all know Trump does not give a shit about). I found myself actually saying that I was concerned about my children and their children so much that I would likely get more involved with the radical left movement than I ever thought I might. I even said that as much as I hate guns, I might even take up arms if that were needed because a wholesale loss of hope created by a Trump win would make desperation justifiable. I referenced my upset daughter who is watching her Brooklyn stores get boarded up in reaction to concerns about rioting. I guess that all qualifies as extreme anticipation and it’s making me late (for a few more days) and keeping me waitin’. Think about how good its gonna feel when its all over and we are laughing about the nightmare of the last four years.