43
Wednesday, February 10, 2021, 12PM Central Standard Time
“Why do you hate us so much?” Mike asked Pete.
“What?” Pete answered, incredulous.
“Why do you hate us liberals and Democrats?” Pete rolled his eyes.
“Here we go.”
“No, I’m serious. Do you hate me for being a liberal?”
“Are you a liberal?”
“Sure. Like JFK, FDR, LBJ, Okomo…”
“Wait a minute. Okomo doesn’t deserve to be in that group.”
“Why not?”
“He was much more radical.”
“No, he wasn’t.”
“He socialized medicine.”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Of course he did.”
“No… he didn’t. He didn’t even try to do that. A lot of Democrats wanted him to. But he didn’t even propose anything close to socializing medicine. He didn’t even try to have a public option alongside the private sector plans, which would have only been a hint of socialism. If he had socialized it, he would not have had to tack on a stupid law requiring everyone to buy into it, which I agree was the dumbest thing about it. But, in fact, he got that requirement from a Republican think tank from 1994, and then from his 2012 opponent, who instituted exactly the same plan when he was a governor in 2006. It was all a Republican idea from the start, because Okomo was trying to make nice to the Republicans and give them what they wanted. But all they did was move the goalposts out of the stadium. Wolf News and all those people were always going to say he was trying to destroy America, socialize medicine, blah blah blah. He should have gone and done it, since they were going to sabotage and destroy anything he did. Instead he compromised, as always, and we ended up with a muddled system that could be easily destroyed by the Republicans. As has now happened.”
“Blah blah blah.”
“Seriously. Look at what we saw the last four years. This guy got in, said we were in American Carnage. We had 4.7% unemployment and decent growth. There was very little unrest in the streets. Okomo had respected democratic norms. He didn’t even really let America know that Russia was interfering in the 2016 election, or that this guy’s campaign was being investigated about that. Since he got in, he’s strong-armed allies for dirt on his opponent, lied ten times a day, called for violence, crowed when liberals were shot in the street, pardoned dozens of his crook pals, broke the Hatch Act with impunity, minted money off his office, used the White House as a venue for political events, and even called for violence against judges. And his supporters have cheered. Which means, you guys think that there was something so super terrible about his opponent that it outweighed all these completely unprecedented violations of everything 44 previous presidents have refused to violate. So what was so terrible? That a black guy succeeded before him?”
Pete scoffed.
“He didn’t succeed. He was worse.”
“He was not worse, and he did succeed, by every previous normal measure. So you are willing to tolerate this guy just ripping up the government as we know it, which means you really, really hate us. So why do you hate us?”
“I don’t hate anybody.”
“I believe you. But you hate somebody or something, out there, and the President is the one you voted for to punish them, right?”
Pete sighed.
“I voted for him to shake things up. I hated what Okomo did to this country.”
“Aha. What do you think he did that was so terrible?”
“He socialized medicine.”
Mike stared at him, then raised his hand toward Janet.
“Tacos?” he said.
Pete turned toward him.
“Now you’re talking.”
Mike was silent.
“You’re mad.”
Mike stayed silent.
“What is it?”
“I explain why what you believed is wrong for five minutes, and then you just repeat the same lie. This is why we can’t have nice things.”
Pete rolled his eyes. “You’re boring, man.”
“This is the thing,” Mike said. “Do I shut up and pretend everything’s fine, or, if not fine, at least kind of business as usual? Or do I tell the truth, which bores people or, even worse, alienates the shit out of them? The day of the inauguration, remember how you kept telling me to get it out? This is me getting it out.”
“I thought you would get it out during one Taco Lunch Wednesday.”
“Well, there seems to be nothing between keeping my mouth completely shut, and talking forever about how dangerous this guy is. And by the way – it’s not just this guy.”
“Ooh,” Pete said. “A conspiracy theory. Lay it on me.”
“It can’t be a conspiracy if it’s right out in the open. It’s the Republican party. They’ve been at war with the truth for decades. …Now I’m boring myself. I’ve already said all of this, and it has no effect.”
“Have you ever considered drugs or gambling as a hobby?”
“Starting to.”
Their tacos arrived and they dug in.
“I’ll give you this,” Pete said, mouth full. “Those Mexicans make good lunch food.”
“Any self-respecting Mexican would gag on this,” Mike said, through a similar mouthful.
“I call bullshit,” Pete said.
“Let’s ask someone who knows,” Mike said after swallowing. “Hey, Homero.”
A man two seats down the bar nursing a bottle of beer turned toward them.
“What?”
“Homero,” Mike said. “You were born in Mexico, right?”
“Yeah. You want to check my papers or something?” he said, in completely un- accented English.
“Sure. You bring ‘em?” Pete said.
“They’re home getting re-forged,” Homero said.
“Makes sense,” Mike said. “They start falling apart after getting checked 600 times by La Migra.”
“So, what do you two gringos want with me?” Homero said.
“What do you think of these tacos?” Mike asked.
“Comida de perros,” Homero said.
“Thank you,” Mike said. “Dog food.”
“How do I know what that meant?” Pete said. “He could have said ‘Breakfast of champions’ for all I know.”
“That would be ‘desayuno de campeones,’” Mike said.
“Quit showing off, college boy,” Pete said.
“They don’t do breakfast down in Mexico, anyway,” Homero said. “It’s not a thing down there, really.”
“No huevos rancheros?” Pete said. “I like those.”
“It’s pretty rare,” Homero said. “Hey, what’s a Mexican three-course breakfast?”
“What?” Pete said.
“Cup of coffee, a cigarette, and a piss,” Homero answered.
They all laughed, two of them spraying shards of tacos de perros on themselves.
“How can you be against letting guys like this in?” Mike asked Pete.
“We’re full up,” Pete said.
“Ah, they’ve been saying that since 1850, since the Know-Nothing Party tried to keep my Irish great-great grandfather out.”
Pete put his taco down and turned to him, as if about to make a momentous point.
“Exactly.”
“Fuck you,” Mike said.
“Back atcha,” Pete said, grinning, and they both took swigs of imported Mexican beer.