The reason people don't date across the political divide

[conuly]

‘The people who say ‘it’s just politics’ are the people for whom bigotry poses no real risk to their jobs, relationships and lives.’

Yeah, pretty much. It's fun to ship diametrically opposed characters, but in real life? It's just as easy to find somebody funny and sweet and hot who also, bonus, doesn't vote against your interests every single election and doesn't support candidates who hate you and everything you stand for.

Comments

[cloudsinvenice]

Great piece. I get very tired of people treating dating a political opponent as if it were a sign of great generosity of spirit, instead of being a sign of being able to treat other people and their needs as disposable.

[conuly]

Got it off MetaFilter: https://www.metafilter.com/184485/They-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-have-orgasms-on-principle

[redbird]

I think some people are imagining the sort of basically friendly political discussion that is something like "should we buy snowplows for the sidewalks, or is it working well enough to have everyone shovel their own sidewalk?" or "would it be a better idea to offer an advanced math class, or reduce class size slightly for everyone in eleventh grade?" Questions that start with an agreement on principles--like, sidewalks should be cleared so people can walk around, and public education is a good thing and worth spending money on. But you can't have that discussion about whether to spend the money on adding an advanced math class with people who object to the whole idea of public education.

[siderea]

. I get very tired of people treating dating a political opponent as if it were a sign of great generosity of spirit, instead of being a sign of being able to treat other people and their needs as disposable.

Well put. And, from the article: a refusal to date political opposites is routinely cast as stubborn and uncompromising

I'm okay with "stubborn and uncompromising". Where I'm from, we just call it "being principled and having standards".

The whole racket is about taking sweet, sweet umbrage that the youngs dare to have boundaries and take their morals seriously.

[konsectatrix]

Yuuup, and funnily enough, the only people I've seen questioning and tsking about "the political divide" and championing "open-mindedness" in the first place all appear to be comfortable white dudes and sometimes their wives/gfs as well.

[wpadmirer]

My parents were always on opposite sides, and let me tell you, there's nothing cute about it.

[siderea]

I am struck about how this article is about liberals (or leftists) who won't give access to their bodies to people on the right.

Is somebody giving a hard time to conservatives who won't date liberals? Because among conservative Christians, there's an expression "unequally-yoked", to refer to getting romantically hitched to someone who doesn't share your religious convictions. It's not considered a good thing:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? [2 Corinthians 6:14]

Is there some reason it's good when they do it, but not when we do it?

[conuly]

Oh, no, siderea, you know it's only ever liberals who 'live in a bubble' and are 'out of touch' and so on.

[conuly]

I believe you.

[conuly]

Amazing coincidence!

[conuly]

Or sidewalks, for that matter.

[conuly]

I'm okay with "stubborn and uncompromising". Where I'm from, we just call it "being principled and having standards".

And I bet you don't say "political correctness" either, you say "good manners".

[siderea]

No, we say "respect and human decency".

[conuly]

All the better.

Great Minds Think Alike

[nodrog]

25.  No matter how attractive certain members of the rebellion are, there is probably someone just as attractive who is not desperate to kill me.  Therefore, I will think twice before ordering a prisoner sent to my bedchamber.

“How to be an Evil Overlord”

Re: Great Minds Think Alike

[conuly]

Yes, except we're not the evil overlords here. A, we're not evil and B, we're clearly not overlords either. Alas. We are the beleaguered heroes.

The advice still applies, though. It's only in fiction that the heroes can reform the bad guys and seduce them to a life of good.

[fred_mouse]

Given how nasty things can get when people in close relationships support opposing sportsball teams, opposing sides of politics is a reach too far for me. Unlike different religions, where I do believe that two people who are genuine about respecting each others beliefs can do well together.

[cloudsinvenice]

It's funny how unrecognisable morality can become from one generation to another: if "having standards and principles" does not play out in the precise way recognised by one lot of people, it's invisible to them.

[fayanora]

Oh gods I can't even stand to be around Republican types on the Internet! I can't imagine tolerating one long enough to fall in love with them.

[landofnowhere]

I dated a moderate Republican when I was a teenager. He grew up, and became a Democrat by sometime in college. His party never did.

[siderea]

I disagreee; I don't think that's what's happening. Check out those sources in the article again: their ability to assert that what is motivating them are morals and their ability to talk about them as morals is somewhere on a spectrum of weak to non-existent. If the right doesn't recognize them as such, well, they're not going to give us that for free, and we aren't insisting on it.

This is the achilles heel of the left right now. The Blue Nation, with the exception of the minuscule religious civil rights left, i.e. Rev Barber and his folks, but very definitely including all the rest of the religious left, is almost completely without the language of moral assertion.

And there's a historical reason for that. There's important cultural history here.

Thing is, went the left asserts itself morally, it wins.

I've beeing thinking I should make a post about that.

"cloudsinvenice - DW Comment" writes:

[cloudsinvenice]

I'd be interested to read that.

[conuly]

*shrugs*

My heart bleeds as much as anybody else's, but I suppose there is a difference between the sort who sincerely think capitalism produces the best results and the sort who hate $GROUP.

[fayanora]

The Republicans these days are basically Nazis. They're voting in actual Nazis, and Trump is emulating Hitler's administration. Someone who sincerely thinks capitalism is good would be a huge improvement over actual Nazis.

[andrewducker]

Absolutely. I could be with someone who I thought had good intentions but different opinions about how to get there, but not with someone who was tremendously authoritarian.

[silveradept]

Well, that's yet another reason why it would never have worked out between me and my abusive ex. (Small potatoes compared to the abusive bit, but for as much as she insisted she wasn't a Republican, she held beliefs in common with them.)

It seems like basic self-preservation to want to know whether your potential dating partner actually sees you as a human.

[cynthia1960]

Deal breaker for me. I thought I could change my college boyfriend away from being a Republican in 1982, ha! If it was impossible then, even more impossible now. Thank goddess I figured out I'm queer.

I want somebody at my back even more at home than at the barricades.

[conuly]

Last thing you need is for your sweetie to be storming the barricades you defend, or vice versa.