So I Dated a Republican Girl

[Joanne98]

Yes, I went there. And I lived to tell about it here.

She was the first girl I ever dated. I was 17, she was 16, when we started (I was a late arrival on the teenage dating scene). It was great at first. She was beautiful. Also fashionable, talkative, and confident; basically, everything I was not. Then, about a month in, we stopped in at Borders Books and Music. We walked past a prominent display of Michael Moore books and DVDs, set up to capitalize on the recent DVD release of "Fahrenheit 9/11". She points to the display, sneers with those full, shiny lips of hers, and says: "I hate him."

I laughed. "Really?"
"Yes."
I laughed again. "Why?"
"He's a jerk."

I smiled, shook my head, and we kept walking. I figured she was at least partially kidding. I was totally wrong.

kwolfman's diary :: :: I've heard and read in many places that politics is one of those subjects on which couples can easily disagree without it affecting their relationship. In general, I have to disagree. Not because politics alone usually has that kind of effect on people, but because vast differences in political philosophy are often symptomatic of equally vast differences in value systems. And people who look at the world in contradictory ways, more often than not, are not a good match. Every substantive conversation--about current events, history, lifestyle, career goals, family, faith, and even fashion--is at risk of degenerating into an argument. We see this dynamic play out every day in Congress, with Democrats and Republicans unable to "come together" and "compromise" because in the end, their values are so fundamentally different that real negotiation is near-impossible. Relationships, whether romantic and platonic, are ultimately no different. A socialist and a blue dog might still be a good match because their worldviews, while not terribly similar, run roughly in the same basic direction. But a socialist and a conservative Republican run head-on into each other on just about every topic of substance, and many of no substance.

I found this out the hard way. I'm not a socialist, but I am a moderate-to-liberal Democrat. She, of course, was a conservative Republican. I surf Daily Kos, she perused Michelle Malkin's blog (seriously). I watch MSNBC, she soaked in FOX News (naturally). I voted for Obama in the 2008 primaries, she went for Romney, because Mussolini wasn't on the ballot (kidding... i think).

For the most part, we successfully blocked out our differences on this matter. After all, love matters most, right? I learned to keep my mouth shut when she said something politically objectionable to me. But it wore me down nonetheless, the slow trickle of comments and observations about politics and the world that I found wrong (these are paraphrased):

1."I think conservatives have a stronger moral compass."
2."I'm sorry, I just can't believe that humans evolved from monkeys."
3."Liberals always seem to take the side of the underdog. I don't get why you'd do that."
4."I think global warming is real, but I don't think it's anywhere near as serious as some people say it is."
5."When I have kids, I'm going to give them this book I found on Amazon. It's called 'Help, Mommy, There's a Liberal under my Bed!'" (seriously)
6."I saw a shirt for sale online that said 'Liberalism is a Mental Disorder' on the front... I think it's true ."
And on and on and on. I was a young guy in the throes of young immature love, so for the sake of a peaceful coexistence I didn't respond out loud. But inside my own head, I did. To #1, I thought "Perhaps, but it's pointed in the wrong direction." To #2, I thought "Why the hell not?!". To #3, I thought "What's so bad about helping someone who needs it?" To #4, I thought "WHY THE HELL NOT?!". I won't even start on #'s 5 and 6.

And although I kept these thoughts to myself, it turns out their effect on our relationship was the same as if I'd screamed them into her ears with a megaphone. I found myself rolling my eyes at her, scoffing at her under my breath, slowly losing my respect for her both as a student (she was a political science major, like myself) and a human being. So, when the primary season heated up last January, the filter on my political mouth ruptured, and I started speaking my mind. I rebutted her inaccurate statements, challenged her viewpoints, tried to get her to open her mind and think more deeply and compassionately. And over the next two months, our relationship totally went to shit. We argued about politics, about current events, about religion, and eventually about--of all things--fashion: I made a couple half-joking remarks about her excessive (in my view) fixation on all things stylish, trendy, material, and expensive (she worked at Abercrombie and Fitch), and before you know it we were yelling through the phone.

We temporarily patched things up in March and I re-installed the filter, but by then I think we both knew it wasn't meant to be. We broke up in June. And only then did I realize just how wrong the relationship had been from the start. We were a bad match from Day One because our political convictions betrayed fundamentally opposite, and irreconcilable, views of the world (my view: progressive but practical; her view: wingnutty). For example, she insisted on sending any children of hers to Catholic school (to promote "good values"), while I'm a true believer in public schooling, and you can't send your kid to two schools at once.

When you think about relationships this way, the whole talking-point debate over "bipartisanship" in Washington becomes much clearer. Specifically, it becomes clear that true bipartisanship can never work in the current political climate. Forty years ago, Democrats were center-left as a party, and Republicans were center-right. That's a gap you could theoretically cross, because both sides touched the center. Today, the Democrats are still roughly center-left, but the Republicans are far-right. The gap is know a gaping chasm. For any equal compromise to occur, both sides have to take huge leaps away from not just specific policy positions, but core defining principles. And no self-respecting man or woman is going to sacrifice those unless he or she is literally staring death in the face. If the Democratic and Republican parties were dating, one would be sleeping on the couch every night.

In regards to health care reform, the search for bipartisanship and "middle ground" has been a fruitless exercise because, for Republicans, the middle is way across that gaping chasm. They find it far better for them to stay on their side and fire stink-bombs than make that gigantic leap from selfishness to sanity. Which is why this news made me literally shout and pump my fist earlier tonight.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/8/19/769210/-So-I-Dated-a-Republican-Girl