How I almost got drunk and voted for John McCain (part 1)

note: This post is long and talks a lot about politics, which ensures that almost no one would have read the whole thing had I not broken it up into two manageable portions

The brutality of Chicago winters is no secret — especially, it seems, among those who felt obliged to critique my decision to move here. It’s really the only reasonable thing one can hold against the city, besides the (significantly flawed) second-place complaint: that Chicago is not as cool as New York.

I have been excited about winter since last January, when the temperature in Buenos Aires topped 100 degrees Fahrenheit for weeks on end. Because I moved there last November, and returned to the Northern hemisphere last May, it has been 20 months since I felt the chill of a part of the planet slanted askew from the sun. Babies born when I last saw snow have already learned to walk.

Now, the atmosphere in Illinois is creeping toward the end of fall. I will use my first paycheck to buy a winter coat. I will have my parents bring me my thermal mittens when I see them in Denver over Thanksgiving. I will have the holes in the soles of my shoes fixed. I will wear my Siberian hat.

I have been told that Chicago social life undergoes a predictable protocol according to its dichotomous climate. Around this time of year, people pair up in couples to snuggle and stay in with during the cold, dark months. A party scene stifled by the unpleasant prospects of icy bike rides and frostbitten waits for buses and trains keeps people from mixing — if you haven’t a significant other by December, you’ll likely have to wait for spring. Of course, once the city emerges around April from its hibernation, and shindigs, soirées, shows and barbecues outnumber the days by an impressive ratio, the test of these intimate winter relationships’ fortitude will commence. Until then, we will couple in warm embraces under blankets and wait for the air to unfreeze.

The teammate I have found to weather the winter with suggested we spend a good portion of it at a charming Polish dive bar down the street from her apartment. We will drink whiskey among immigrants and ignore the other hipsters who have our idea. We will be the smartest and warmest people in the room, content with our unbelievably astute insights into the states of cultural, political, and artistic affairs. We will slide off our stools and totter happily home.

Last week we decided to practice what will become our winter regiment, and she introduced me to her neighborhood bar. Call it a pre-season scrimmage. The bartender looked a bit annoyed when I asked her to spill a bit more bourbon into my first glass, but she friendlied up after a few solid tips. My partner and I talked the gamut, and after several stiff drinks I unveiled to her a plan my head had begun to formulate during our discourse: I was going to vote for John McCain.

Maybe it stemmed from our conversation about Wall Street and its recent reception of an unfathomable $700 billion bailout from the federal government, but I don’t even remember talking about that. Regardless, my argument against said financial package was — and is — based on a simple truth: Real political change never happens while a substantial portion of a populous feels comfortable. As long as we have the choice between Pepsi and Coke, we demand little else. If we have our jobs and cars and weekends, can feed our children until they’re fat, watch television and our pairs of playful puppies at intermittent intervals, and are not without the things we have come to understand are integral parts of American life, we have no incentive to pressure politicians into making substantial adjustments to our political landscape — or, god forbid, to go out and make the adjustments ourselves.

I wanted Wall Street to fall in part because I believe that trickle-down economics works in the capitalist system to a pretty impressive extent, at least in a negative sense. If Wall Street collapses, then credit freezes, and business like the ones that employ both you and I cease to operate, because the economy is structured like that. Manufacturers rely on credit to fill the gaps between production, shipment, and payment. Services rely on it when expenses like unexpected repairs emerge. When Wall Street is flush and can broker credit, things function efficiently forth. When it has no credit to sell, commerce stops.

(One of) the problem(s), of course, with trickle-down economics, is that it only applies to the middle and working classes in a negative sense. When the government does not help big companies, the middle class hurts. Un-conversely, when jumbo companies are unfairly awarded tax breaks, bailouts, and the like, the non-elite do not, for the most part, suffer, but nothing really gets better. The rich get richer or stay rich, and the establishment protects their wealth. The rest of us are trapped in a cycle of consumerism, work at unfulfilling jobs, drink until we fall asleep, find the possibility of fun as we recall it from our youths an increasingly remote prospect, are unable to fathom a pursuit that would bring meaning to our lives — and, if we can fathom it, we are unable to pursue it because we are busy paying rent and going to Disneyland — we have children that do all of this and more, and we eventually die. Don’t get me wrong: The lives of rich people are just as empty and pathetic and would benefit in the long run from the reforms I envision, but it would be a lie to say I am in this on their behalf, too.

I was against the bailout because I wanted Wall Street to fall and, in turn, trigger such an economic catastrophe that the lives of people all over the country and world would be shocked into such discomfort that they would have no choice but to participate in radical political reform. A bailout will do nothing besides prolong the normal functions of an economic system that keeps Americans’ lives boring and vacant at the violent expense of most of the rest of the world (the Middle East, Latin America, etc.).

In a way, Barack Obama is a similar sort of bailout.

Check back tomorrow for the conclusion of this post.