Sausage Making

I’m one of those strange people who likes thinking about how the sausage gets made. Sometimes I even think about it while taking a bite out of a hotdog. I think about the plant where it was made and the slaughterhouse where the meat came from. I think about the steps that lead from live animals to the delicious sausage I’m eating. Not just the steps that involve a grinder. Even the steps that involve a broom.

I was listening to an old Merle Haggard song about the “good ole days” when I realized that much of the discord in America today exists because people perpetually avoid thinking about how the sausage gets made. Not only do they avoid thinking about it, they are so disgusted by it that they block it out. Half of you have already forgotten the punchline to the joke that I opened with because it was so gross.

During the Trump campaigns, Daily Show correspondents had a field day asking people at his rallies “When was America great?” They knew that no matter what date people picked from the past they’d be able to point out some group of people who were horribly disadvantaged in that time period. And sure enough, time and time again, they gave “gotcha” mic drop responses. They’re beating a dead horse though. If what they’re trying to point out is that those horrors aren’t going into conservatives’ calculation of American greatness then … duh. That’s news to exactly no one. They aren’t thinking about how the sausage got made. They’re just remembering how good it used to taste before the USDA said you can’t put real blood in it any more.