Conservative Whine Caves

Dear Reader [including denizens of wine caves], The day President Trump was impeached, he went ...

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Dear Reader [including denizens of wine caves],

The day President Trump was impeached, he went to a rally in Michigan to bask in the uncritical love of a crowd. At the rally, he suggested that John Dingell, the recently deceased long-serving Michigan congressman, might be burning in hell. (He didn’t use the term burning in hell, but that was implied by the suggestion he was looking “up” from the Great Beyond.)

The White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, was asked about it the next day.

She explained that the president is a “counter-puncher” who has been under attack. She also emphasized that this was a “political rally.” “It was a very, very supportive and wild crowd, and he was just riffing on some of the things that had been happening the past few days,” 

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  1. Avatar photo
    Butch Earl

    A great G-File! Thank you Jonah and The Dispatch!

    This is spot on!
    "[Trump's] style is a bland euphemism for his character, which includes everything from bragging about sexual assault to mocking a widow about her possibly hell-bound husband."

    I'll quote a Greek without using any big Greek words:

    "There is but one genuine love potion - consideration." ~ Menander

    I'm afraid it should really be the Conservative Whine Cave-In. Lincoln was compared to a Gorilla. Reagan was a dangerous senile cowboy who was going to blow up the world. George H.W. Bush, the teenage World War II naval aviator, was branded a whimp. None of those men gave into their worst impulses, kept their cool, and we're all the better for it. Trump not only gives into his worst impulses, he revels in them and his apologists revel in his reveling in them. It's very sad.

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    Jlenhikes

    Gotta say I feel a little beat up by this G File, being a conservative and all.

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    Kevin Durant?

    “I am sympathetic to Eastwood’s indictment. But I’m also dismayed by the degree to which the self-pity and victimhood baked into the movie make it “conservative.” There’s a tremendous amount of whininess to conservatism these days.”
    ———————————————-
    I am also confused by this

    The problem with grievance culture is not that people are airing grievances. The problem is that their grievances are not legitimate

    The ‘school to prison pipeline’ is not a real thing. The idea that the 6th grade is being taught and administrated by a secret network of bigots is both dumb and obviously false

    ‘Wages go down when labor supply goes up’, on the other hand, is not dumb and false. It is basic economics

    There is always a lot of whining. It is our job as sentient humans to decide if the person whining has a point or not

    PS I realize I am airing grievances about the G-File which is both free and great. I am ashamed for this

    PPS If the first Dispatch member event is not held in a wine cave I don’t even know what we are doing

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  4. Avatar photo
    Kevin Durant?

    “But it doesn’t begin or end with Trump. When drug addiction was seen as mostly a problem for blacks and the “underclass,” conservatives talked a lot about zero tolerance, tough love, and individual responsibility. In the wake of the opioid crisis, the rhetoric has changed remarkably. Suddenly, it’s supply-side problem, not a demand-side one.”
    —————————————
    I’ve heard this comparison before and I really do not understand it at all

    “I’m addicted to crack because I like to party and I know a guy...”

    is not the same as

    “I’m addicted to opioids because they were prescribed to me by a licensed physician and sold to me by a publicly traded company...”

    Those two things are not the same in any way. It’s like comparing the guy who sues you because he cut himself breaking into your house with the guy who sues his doctor for leaving medical instruments inside of him after surgery

    I must be missing something and I assume it has to do with the patriarchy

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    1. Ann G

      Well, where does personal responsibility kick in? Is it in enrolling in a program to help you stop taking your prescription medicine after the prescription runs out? Are you responsible for your addiction if someone got you hooked as a kid before you fully understood what you were doing? Or that you turned to drug use out of despair? Does any of it matter once the effects of personal addiction are starting to spread? I'd be interested to know precisely how you would treat "legitimate" addiction and "un-legitimate" addiction. I suppose it comes down to mercy, not patriarchy.

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        Kevin Durant?

        I totally agree. Personal responsibility kicks in immediately in both cases. I’m just saying in terms of things to be outraged about, major institutions acting like street criminals is clearly more troubling than street criminals acting like street criminals.

        I’m pretty sure outrage over the crack epidemic would have been greater, understandably so, if doctors had been prescribing crack. Not trying to excuse behavior, just saying that it is fairly obvious that these two phenomenon warrant different reactions

        “Just say no.....to your doctor when they prescribe medicine” is not something you should say in order to be consistent and even-handed. It is what an anti-vaxxer would say.

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        1. Ann G

          Yes, I do agree they warrant different emotional reactions, though the practical actions may remain the same.

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            Kevin Durant?

            Well practically speaking the ‘solution’ is very different in one respect.

            In one case you have people intentionally trying to get high which is an eternal problem I would describe as unsolvable.

            In the other case there is a pretty easy fix: Stop prescribing heroin to people.

            You are right though. Once someone is addicted I would assume the practical approach is the same. I’d imagine the fact that you were unwittingly given your ‘first taste’ doesn’t factor in. Although there are probably people who would tell you there is a difference in underlying psych traits between a person initially willing to seek an altered state illegally and a person who isn’t.

            Luckily we won’t have this problem again. Unless Adderall, which is an amphetamine, is being prescribed widely....

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  5. Avatar photo
    Kenton A. Hoover

    The line about Trump’s demand for payback for the favors he bestows is “Thank you Pharaoh for the bounty you have bestowed upon us”, which I think someone either threatened to or actually did scrawl on one of those “shovel-ready” infrastructure project signs. When Trump (or any other pol) offers favors or largess I think, to misquote someone else, “you didn’t pay for this.”

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