Carpe Pizza

Or: Read the ****ing Menu

Last weekend we ordered pizza. It was the day after my wife got back from ten days away, and we were out on the deck doing a deep trip debrief and setting the world to rights, aided by non-trivial quantities of Hazy IPA and Pinot Noir.

I’d been looking forward to the pizza for a couple days (I’m like that) and also knew we’d better get some food on the way because the chat was flowing freely, and so was the wine. So I ordered a medium Mount McKinley from Mountain Mike’s — pepperoni, Italian sausage, mushrooms, black olives, bell peppers, onions and diced tomatoes, to which I add artichoke hearts because I am a pizza genius.

It’s our established go-to, and easily the best available in the county (the fact that no-one does a Chicago-style deep dish pie locally is one of the few downsides to living in Santa Cruz, and California in general). In addition, I ordered, as is our custom, some of their serviceable barbecue wings.

What arrived forty five minutes later, however, was: a large pepperoni pizza, with chicken frickin’ nuggets.

I immediately tried to contact the delivery person, in pizza panic mode, and got dead-ended into a tech void. So I took a deep breath and made a snap decision (it’s this clinical swiftness of thought that makes it a shame I’m disallowed from running for high office) and told my wife: Fuck it, we’re eating this pizza.

I had been relishing the other pizza, the perfect pizza, and this one was not what I wanted. There was also the issue, as Paula pointed out (her levels of empathy could be used to power a small country), that someone, somewhere, would be equally disappointed not to receive the pizza that was currently languishing in our kitchen. Having previously suffered a wrong delivery from Uber Eats, however, I knew that should a solution emerge, it’d be the pizza place re-sending both orders, manufactured again from scratch — and so we’d be staring down the barrel of half a dozen calls and over an hour wait, by the end of which we’d be, frankly, too drunk to want any pizza.

And so we ate it. Mountain Mike’s know what they’re doing. It was not what I’d wanted, but it was a good pepperoni pizza, and it was right there.

Which brings me to the Presidential election.

Newsflash: I do not care how old Joe Biden is

One of the things most driving me to distraction is the media’s oft-bemoaned but still endless coverage of Biden’s age, along with equally endless bleating about the fact the choice for President has come down to these particular two old white guys again.

Both of these observations are true, and the situation is non-ideal. But guess what? Saying that makes no difference to what happens next. Yes, it’d be nice if Biden was ten or twenty years younger. He’s not. Absorb that fact. Truly come to terms. Then shut up about it. Because he is, however, an experienced and deeply committed public servant who knows what the hell he’s going, is quietly achieving remarkable things, and appears to be a very good human in general. The other guy is a fucking asshole.

Do you see the difference?

Trump is an asshole, furthermore, who’s out there right now doubling down on an off-the-cuff admission that he wants to be a dictator. It’s there now in every speech, but the media just chuckle and roll their eyes — “What a joker, right?” — and get back to the important business of wondering aloud whether Biden is perhaps a little old. Meanwhile the RNC has effectively become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Trump Inc, and is building toward a nationwide focus on election “integrity”. This from the party who’ve merrily supported Trump’s attempts to subvert that, all the way down the line.

They know they can’t win by legitimate means, and so they’re going all-in on trying to steal it. The only way to prevent that is by voting Dem at truly nuke-from-orbit levels — because, hey, spoiler — Trump is going to skate on every charge he’s currently under, or get friendly judges to push the cases back until it’s too late. He’s had a lifetime of practice at this and unfortunately it seems our judicial system hasn’t.

The question of choice

One of the less annoying objections I hear from progressives over the current choice is that the Democrats should have a better and more varied choice available within the party. Fair point, but actually they do have a pretty deep bench. There’s a dozen Dems who could make a very good job of presidenting, in the future, or — in some cases — right now, starting with the Vice President.

However (leaving aside the fact that Biden is the incumbent, often given open field, and now officially the nominee) none of the alternatives have anything like the necessary brand recognition, and some suffer from niggling issues that conservative voters find problematic (like being female) — so not a single one of them would stand a chance of defeating Trump.

Defeating Trump, and the reactionary forces that stand in ranks behind him, is the only issue this year. Yes, it really is. I know we said that last time. We were right then too.

News media: listen up. This is not a yawn, same-old-same-old election, just because it’s the same two old white dudes again. Not even remotely. As it was compellingly put in a Substack called Stop the Presses:

Change what you CAN change

Voting third party helps Trump. Sitting there with your arms folded demanding that Biden earn your vote, or pouting you’re not going to vote for either of them, so there, helps Trump. It stuns me how many on the left seem not to realize that this is a binary choice, who instead ramble on as if some magical perfect candidate is going to spring out of the back of the closet hiding the trap door to Narnia.

No, they won’t. This is it.

How did you not-voting work out for everybody in 2016? Right.

Should there be a wider choice of credible and electable parties? Yes. Should each party offer several candidates, offering a nuanced opportunity to vote? Also yes. But right now, they don’t. They offer Biden vs Trump. It is what it is. The Electoral College system is ludicrous, too — but that ain’t getting changed in 2024 either.

Try to remember: On election day this year (or any) you’re not some gloriously unique individual, whose inner brilliance and value must be recognized by the opportunity to make a vote of utter integrity for the perfect candidate, one you can brag about to your friends. You’re a number. That number is “1”. Your only job is choosing whose vote total — out of Biden and Trump, and also in all the down-ballot races, which shape both Congress and our local communities — is increased by that single unit.

If you want more say than that, or demand greater involvement and personal representation — then stop tweeting and get stuck into local politics. Help shape the future of the party. Find your glorious candidate and build them into a credible position on the national stage. Don’t just whine about how it is right now, because right now is a time where you have to take your foot off the “It’s all about me” brake and slam it on the “Actually, it’s for everybody else” accelerator.

Democracy can only function for the good if voters are prepared to set aside their own immediate desires, their own immediate existential needs, and vote for what’s best for the country — voting for the party, polices and candidate who are most likely to benefit the largest number of people, regardless of how similar they are to you.

This is not a drill

At this point, complaining about the paucity of choice for President is like going into McDonald’s and getting mad that there’s no Confit Duck available. This is the deal, those are the choices. Make the decision. It’s not hard. Stop wishing you could order Pickled Albatross. You can’t. Get over yourself.

The menu’s right there. Read it again. Get a friend to help you if necessary. There’s a pizza on it, and just one other thing. Order the pizza, even if it’s not the perfect pizza for you. Because the only other option is a steaming bowl of treasonous, fraudulent, insurrecting, totalitarian, shit.

You can re-write the menu for 2028.

This year, seize the pizza.