Before addressing the topic above, I want to announce a change of plans. As I told folks on our Friday call, I was planning to interview Sasha Polakow-Suransky this coming Friday about his book on the relationship between Israel and apartheid South Africa. But given the Palestinian Authority’s
But...you know, this is all very Kate McKinnon. Wenowdis.
It's been perfectly plain for many years that the people the media insist on calling conservatives aren't conservative at all; they're white supremacists. Slavers. People who have no other way to justify what they've got or will ever have. Some figleaf it with God, some don't bother. It's been true since the late 80s, early 90s, which non-coincidentally is when they started having the vapors about their birthrate/Western-canon-death nightmare that's come true, thanks to free love and miscegenation and feminism and all. It's what happens when you stop enslaving women and killing non-whites quite so much. They know this and they've been freaking about it for 40 years, and I'm only surprised that they haven't turned yet to outright attempts at genocide, which is the only thing that can save their position. In a few years, says Pew, my daughter's generation will be majority-minority. The first one in the US of A. I'm glad. I'm also glad that it's such a diverse crowd, and it'll turn out, I think, to be a strength that they have so little to lose personally, and that older people accustomed to wealth and public help don't seem to be able to take that in.
At work I hear much frustration from white bosses who for some reason think I'll be sympathetic to their deciding that they're not succeeding because of too much wokeness, rather than, say, their not communicating well, or not coming up with very good ideas in the first place, or being unrealistic about what to expect from people, or simply getting older and falling out of touch with what a much larger group of young people know, want, and expect. These are highly-educated, liberal people. And they're not getting what they want, and they figure they know whose fault that is.
Also, I think we can take it as given that Dershowitz is 360 degrees of awful. He's had a very long time to offer even a whiff of that's not being true. Hasn't bothered. I believe the sexual harassment accusations, he was a nut for Trump, he's one of the most overprivileged professional victims I've ever heard in print, and I can't even remember why he was famous as a lawyer. Also, I don't care.
Maybe 15 years ago I came across a college IR text I thought I'd lost, an anthology I liked a lot. And it occurred to me that it was just fine that I'd left the field, because it's the study of men aged about 50 and older being horrible to everyone else, some on a very personal scale, and some on a mass scale. Now and then you get a glimmer of light, an older man, some kind of statesman, working to the public good. No doubt being horrible as he does it, because that's what the business requires, but still, the aim and indeed the effects, good. But it's unusual. And diplomacy is the upstairs staff fussing around and doing their best to clean up after they've behaved despotically, and restore people's faith in an ability to take tea like civilized people. I'm not sorry I haven't devoted most of my life to the doings of these men behaving so grotesquely, and am much in sympathy with people who turn their back on the whole affair and grow veg gardens.
Trump's immoral character is not seen as a deal breaker for conservatives, but not for the reasons you cite. Christian conservatives do not view the government the way you and I do, and their justification for supporting Trump can easily be found in the Bible. Conservatives would argue God used flawed and immoral humans as civic leaders in the past, and would cite some examples:
King David (who killed the husband of a woman he wanted to sleep with)
Cyrus (who rebuilds the Temple and allows the Jews to return to Israel)
The argument being: yes, Trump is immoral, but he is serving a good purpose (I would assume the eventual overturning of Roe v Wade being a prime example).
Hi all. I have enjoyed Peter’s writing for years and am so excited to be able to support and enjoy it on substack.
But...you know, this is all very Kate McKinnon. Wenowdis.
It's been perfectly plain for many years that the people the media insist on calling conservatives aren't conservative at all; they're white supremacists. Slavers. People who have no other way to justify what they've got or will ever have. Some figleaf it with God, some don't bother. It's been true since the late 80s, early 90s, which non-coincidentally is when they started having the vapors about their birthrate/Western-canon-death nightmare that's come true, thanks to free love and miscegenation and feminism and all. It's what happens when you stop enslaving women and killing non-whites quite so much. They know this and they've been freaking about it for 40 years, and I'm only surprised that they haven't turned yet to outright attempts at genocide, which is the only thing that can save their position. In a few years, says Pew, my daughter's generation will be majority-minority. The first one in the US of A. I'm glad. I'm also glad that it's such a diverse crowd, and it'll turn out, I think, to be a strength that they have so little to lose personally, and that older people accustomed to wealth and public help don't seem to be able to take that in.
At work I hear much frustration from white bosses who for some reason think I'll be sympathetic to their deciding that they're not succeeding because of too much wokeness, rather than, say, their not communicating well, or not coming up with very good ideas in the first place, or being unrealistic about what to expect from people, or simply getting older and falling out of touch with what a much larger group of young people know, want, and expect. These are highly-educated, liberal people. And they're not getting what they want, and they figure they know whose fault that is.
Also, I think we can take it as given that Dershowitz is 360 degrees of awful. He's had a very long time to offer even a whiff of that's not being true. Hasn't bothered. I believe the sexual harassment accusations, he was a nut for Trump, he's one of the most overprivileged professional victims I've ever heard in print, and I can't even remember why he was famous as a lawyer. Also, I don't care.
Maybe 15 years ago I came across a college IR text I thought I'd lost, an anthology I liked a lot. And it occurred to me that it was just fine that I'd left the field, because it's the study of men aged about 50 and older being horrible to everyone else, some on a very personal scale, and some on a mass scale. Now and then you get a glimmer of light, an older man, some kind of statesman, working to the public good. No doubt being horrible as he does it, because that's what the business requires, but still, the aim and indeed the effects, good. But it's unusual. And diplomacy is the upstairs staff fussing around and doing their best to clean up after they've behaved despotically, and restore people's faith in an ability to take tea like civilized people. I'm not sorry I haven't devoted most of my life to the doings of these men behaving so grotesquely, and am much in sympathy with people who turn their back on the whole affair and grow veg gardens.
Trump's immoral character is not seen as a deal breaker for conservatives, but not for the reasons you cite. Christian conservatives do not view the government the way you and I do, and their justification for supporting Trump can easily be found in the Bible. Conservatives would argue God used flawed and immoral humans as civic leaders in the past, and would cite some examples:
King David (who killed the husband of a woman he wanted to sleep with)
Cyrus (who rebuilds the Temple and allows the Jews to return to Israel)
The argument being: yes, Trump is immoral, but he is serving a good purpose (I would assume the eventual overturning of Roe v Wade being a prime example).