UPDATE:
Perhaps this story from the AP is emblematic of how Republicans are baking the “American Pie” for November 6.
The town of Dodge City, Kansas, population 27,000, is “60 percent Hispanic after an influx of immigrants drawn to its two meatpacking plants.”
While Dodge City had multiple polling locations until 2002, today it only has one. Other polling locations in Kansas serve an average of 1,200 voters.
The one polling location was located at the civic center in the mostly white part of town.
Now, just in time for the November 6 elections, the one and only polling location has been moved just outside the city limits, more than a mile from the nearest bus stop.
But wait, it gets worse. The AP:
After moving Dodge City’s sole polling site outside city limits, county election officials sent newly registered voters an official certificate of registration that listed the wrong place to cast a ballot in the midterm election — the latest election snafu to surface in the iconic Wild West town where Hispanics now make up the majority of the population.
There is a glimmer of hope, however:
Nearly 600 people have volunteered to come to Dodge City to give people rides to their polling place on election day, Dunlap said. The advocacy group Voto Latino is trying to provide Lyft rides to voters who need transportation. The party is also leasing vans for election day voting, canvassing in neighborhoods and advertising to inform voters of available rides.
Original Post:
Traditionally, the idiom “baked in” has been used to describe factors or circumstances that have already been taken into account, “priced in,” included in an organization’s or an individual’s decision-making process. It is frequently used in financial and technology circles and context.
John Kelly, “an educator, writer, and word nerd living in Dublin,” says, “Baked in is talky and homey, condensing the abstract concept of inevitability or irreversibility into a simple, sweet sound bite.”
However, the term baked in has become somewhat less “talky and homey” and more ominous in the Trump era and is frequently mentioned in political analyses — and for “good” reasons
Already during the 2016 presidential campaign and elections, the commentariat’s opinion was that support for Trump was “baked in,” no matter what (additional) scandals, sexual escapades. character flaws, issues of morality or corruption or any other revelations (that would sink any “normal” politician’s ambitions) came to light. They were already “baked into the electoral cake.”
The baked in phenomenon, and all it stands for, has continued unabatedly during Trump’s reign.
Just as Trump’s support was baked in during the elections — no questions asked, no moral or intellectual curiosity or dilemmas — his supporters continue to give him a pass, no matter the outrage du jour; no matter the 5,000 plus lies; no matter the false promises; no matter the credible investigations into corruption, collusion and obstruction of justice.
Take it from Fox News where political analyst Jessica Tarlov recently argued that Trump’s alleged use of the N-word (“or whatever it is”), is already baked in and won’t move the needle “at all come Election Day” – and neither will his post-Charlottesville comments.
“Word nerd” Kelly, referring to the 2016 election, extends the baked in expression to the culinary art of cake baking:
As baked as the cake may be this election, one candidate is proving that not all cakes are of equal bake. Baked in may imply a treat, but the idiom can’t disguise how unpalatable, even toxic, the Trump campaign has become.
I will take the cake metaphor one (culinary) step farther, to the baking of an “American Pie.”
Many explanations have been given about the symbolism behind “American Pie” — the iconic Don McLean charts topper — in addition to McLean’s expression of “his long-running grief over [Buddy] Holly’s death.” Among them, the loss of innocence, “things are heading in the wrong direction. …[life] is becoming less idyllic…”
While Americans have had a sense of “loss of innocence” for many decades, it is my opinion that “things” have never before headed so seriously and so rapidly in the wrong direction in our country.
Traditional, prized ingredients of the American Pie – equality, justice, tolerance, diversity and inclusion, empathy, equal opportunity and true family values – are being rapidly replaced by bigotry; fear mongering, division and dishonesty; hateful, angry and incendiary rhetoric — a “hate that is consuming us.”
A far cry from “as American as apple pie.”
But back to the “baked-in cake”:
I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid that Trump’s and the GOP’s latest “closing arguments” (the separation of children from their parents at our southern border; the bashing of Christine Blasey Ford; the wink-wink to the Khashoggi murder; the lauding of a congressman who body slammed a reporter; demonizing and threatening the press and Trump’s critics; the falsehoods, hysteria and fear mongering about the approaching “caravan” and throw in a couple hundred more lies) just in time for the November elections are also already baked into the cake.
If the November 6 cake has already been baked — excuse one final culinary metaphor — “our goose is cooked.”
Lead image credit: Poppy
