t-shirt make me sad :(
the following is an op-ed written by young iowa republican ty dougson:
I further gentrified Des Moines’s East Village a few months ago as I moved in for a new job. But, I also moved because Des Moines holds a sentimental place in the furtive corners of my surprisingly not elderly heart, also it’s really cheap.
Growing up like 2 hours from the city, Polk County’s sprawling burg of culture and beauty, I came to love Des Moines, but despite my love, I basically never visited except for maybe like once a year, because that’s what you do when you love and are drawn to something, you just never engage with it or see it.
I loved Des Moines because several Buzzfeed listicles convinced me to and also because the presidential election cycle starts here for some reason. I loved it for the community and its nationally noted prosperity. Have you seen the capitol dome? It’s got gold on it.
But more than anything else, it struck me as a truly pure, clean, white, Iowan city. Des Moines is a concentrated reflection of the best Iowa has to offer, yknow, stuff like The Nadas, putting crab rangoon into and onto non-Chinese foods, and unspoken systemic racial discrimination.
Which is why I was saddened by the inventory of an explicitly liberal t-shirt store that has been explicitly liberal for its entire decade long existence. Several lines have political messages on them. As a person who only wears dress shirts, even when I go to bed, I don’t like when shirts have graphics on them, especially graphics that I think aren’t good or just plain bad.
Some shirts make fun of Republicans, many of whom are noble and fine Iowans, which means they should never ever be scrutinized. Some shirts were sponsored by political organizations, a truly uncommon and vile business approach that disgusts me to my core. Some shirts actively associate with the #Resistance and oppose the president (who I didn’t vote for btw) ((but, we should still uncritically support him though)).
One product features a quip about a thing that the Trump administration did, but the quip is intentionally misleading. How is it misleading? This is my op-ed, so I’m not going to meaningfully elaborate on that. Instead, I’m going to complain for a few more sentences.
Don’t get me wrong, I knew the good folks at Raygun, who I really don’t think are secretly communists and Satanists probably, were of a Dumbycrat bent. Every single one of their politically charged products that have existed since I was a teenager 10 years ago, including the one that makes fun of my esteemed and kind colleague Rep. Steve King, far predate the 2016 election cycle (the first time in my comfy Iowan life I was compelled to actually think about politics).
But these generally typical and unremarkable brand statements, at best, make me feel bad and like I’m not cool, which I am. Is Raygun truly an outfitter for Des Moinesians, or are they the outfitters for disgusting liberals and other disreputables who shouldn’t be allowed to vote, like the Irish.
I was looking forward to an opportunity in which I could discursively construct an image of myself as a martyr of a meaningless culture war, a chance to invert the liberal milieu of the city to convey my dislike of a t-shirt store as actual disenfranchisement. But, that’s clearly stupid and cynical. I failed, my intentions an obvious expression of sniveling conservative self-victimization.
(read the original column here: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/iowa-view/2018/04/16/conservatives-welcome-raygun-store/512369002/)
