That's right: denial. 

I'm in it.  Everyone I know is.  And, just like in the Kübler-Ross model, denial's only the first stage of the death of an economic powerhouse.  We haven't even gotten to the anger yet.  Mainly because we're in denial.  It's hard to be angry about something you can't believe is happening. 

But it is happening.  And not just here.  Europe's waking up to the fact  that they're much worse off than they'd imagined, too.  No one believes that the stimulus (or, as Jon Stewart has been calling it: the timulus package) will really do much to avert the economic catstrophe the President has been warning will come if it isn't passed.  There's reasonable skepticism about the ability of the government to distribute hundreds of billions of dollars fairly, and to any effect. 

There's a growing sense of fatalism among those of us in the soon-to-be former middle class, as prices on staples creep up, wages flatline, and job security flies out the window. It's dawning on even hardcore hopesters that Obama can't fix it.  I mean, back in the day Julio Osegueda's precious (if slightly sketchy) performance at an Obama rally would have been rewarded with ten job offers from fast food rivals.  Today he gets an unpaid internship at a local radio station and a chance to DJ a bush-league baseball game — one game — for twenty-five bucks.


The praise this poor kid heaps on Obama for the President's "answer" to a question about benefits for part-time low-wage earners isn't just off-topic, it's downright delusional.  Here was Julio Osegueda's question at the rally:

I've been at the same job, which is McDonald's, for four-and-a-half years because of the fact that I can't find another job. Now, with the fact that I've been there for as long as I've been there, do you have any plan or any idea of making one that has been there for a long time receive any better benefits than what they've already received?

Obama's answer?

The fact that you are working as hard as you are working at a job that know doesn't always pay as well as some other jobs, I think that's a source of pride for you.  That shows that you're doing the right thing. Now, the second thing is is that you will actually benefit from the tax breaks that we're talking about, so you'll be able to keep a little bit of extra money, 'cause we're going to offset your payroll tax. That's gonna help.

The answer was as patronizing as the coverage of the question, and not much of an answer besides.  Still, the man-child the media has dubbed McJulio singlehandedly made the next news cycle.  He appears to be on his way to becoming the liberal Joe the Plumber.  Everyone from Julie Chen to Olbermann has had him on.  There was something faintly sickening in the exchanges.  Osegueda's innocence and guileless enthusiasm was the story, but the curdled cynicism of the media in spinning it had the edge of an inside joke of which he was the butt. 

Take Chen's question, "I want to know what happened after you voiced your problem to the president?" Which was clearly meant to prompt Osegueda to tell the television audience about the two "job" offers he had received after "stealing the show" from Obama.  Osegueda answered:

When I voiced my problem to the President of the United States, I was so shocked at the answer he gave me. The answer that he gave me was so — so sincere and so motivational to me that it just — I had such a surreal feeling that I’ve never had in my life.

This is the real, unfortunate end of all that Obamania, innit?  It's well and good for desperate housewives (check out the Daily Show's Moment of Zen from February 10th) and ivy league college kids whose portfolios have taken a little hit but whose futures are still secure to escape their terminal ennui momentarily and get their radical chic lite on at the odd $500-a-spot Shepard Fairey gala or Yes We Can rally.  But for really desperate people (and Julio Osegueda clearly qualifies) where "can" has a different connotation (past tense: "canned"), there's something sad about it.

And there's a flip-side.  Frankly, when I saw footage of Osegueda at the rally, I thought, Jeez Louise, who let that nutcase in?  Fanaticism blows both ways.  I mean, what if Obama had said, "look kid, you're fucked.  Next question!" — who knows what kind of reaction the kid would've had?  Desperate people in desperate times do desperate things. 

As Americans begin to grasp to what degree the new economy impacts their personal pursuit of happiness — something Americans are very serious about — the anger will come.  As more Americans higher up the food chain lose their jobs, there will be a day in the not-too-distant future when the idea that bail-out money would finance big bonuses at failed firms will not seem as awe-shucks boys'll-be-boys as it does now, and the patronizing palliatives that garner praise from the low-wage workers won't have the rest of us laughing up our sleeves.

But for now, denial'll do.  In fact, I'm off to Paris next Tuesday, for no better reason than I still can. (Yes, I can!)  Sure, the bottom's about to fall out of my personal finances, but, like the song says: "A week in Paris will ease the plight of it.  All I care is to smile in spite of it..."  Might as well enjoy denial while you still have the luxury of being in it, is what I always say.