By David Futrelle
The most heartening thing in the news today — I mean, aside from ex-Trumper Sam Nunberg’s live TV meltdown — is this story by Mimi Montgomery in Washingtonian magazine about the sad plight of right wingers in D.C., none of whom are apparently able to find anyone who wants to get into their pants.
Yep. In these politically fraught times, it seems no sensible person wants to have anything to do (in bed or out) with those who like, much less work for, that orange thing in the White House.
In a city as overwhelmingly Democratic as DC, the combination of lingering anger over Hillary Clinton‘s loss and President Trump‘s existence makes it tricky for conservatives to date across party lines.
“A lot of times you’ll connect with someone [on an app] and they’ll Google you, find out you worked for Trump’s campaign, and then it’s pretty much all downhill from there,” says a Trump Administration official.
Aww. Let me play you a little song:
But actual White House staffers aren’t the only ones suffering:
People who work in right-wing media say they don’t have it any better.
“The political divide has gotten so wide that a lot of younger liberals don’t have any interest in meeting conservatives,” says a reporter at a conservative media company. Working for a right-wing publication is such an obstacle to dating in DC, he doesn’t put his employer on any dating apps and avoids talking about it until meeting someone face-to-face, he says.
Maybe this will cheer you up a little bit:
No matter how hard they may try to hide their perverse political proclivities, there are always clues. One self-described “moderate conservative” tells Washingtonian that he
once brought a woman back to his place, and while checking out his bookshelf, she noticed some books by conservative thinkers, he says. “She was like, ‘Oh no. First question: Did you vote for Trump?’,” the reporter says. He told her no, but that he was conservative. “She was like ‘I have to get out of here. I can’t see you,’ and left.”
Let’s listen to the song that’s already playing in your head:
While conservatives complain that all the liberal hotties lump Trump true-believers in with “principled” conservatives, one progressive woman assured the Washingtonian she’s perfectly capable of distinguishing between dudes who want “lower marginal tax rates” and those who believe no “woman should have a right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.”
Generally, it’s not that hard to tell.
Most of the self-identifying progressives I talked with said they could tell how far right a man or woman leaned based on their dating-app photos—”Make America Great Again” hats are an obvious tell, but some also listed photos of US flag paraphernalia, hunting gear, or fratty beach parties as turn-offs.
But sometimes stealth conservatives can slip past liberal filters.
When she first moved to DC, a former Obama White House staffer who now works at the Aspen Institute was set up on a date with a Republican who worked on Capitol Hill. “We had a really nice time, but at the end of the date, he told me he didn’t believe in global warming,” she says. “I started laughing, because I’m from Colorado and didn’t realize people actually didn’t believe in global warming. But he was serious.”
They didn’t go out again.
Evidently, it’s those on the left who are doing most of the rejecting.
Republicans say it’s liberals who are more likely to turn down someone across the aisle. “Democrats are usually more vocal” about their opposition, the Trump staffer says, and therefore quicker to demonize all conservatives.
“I feel like they look at me and are like, here’s a tall white dude with brown hair wearing loafers, and he probably has a picture of Reagan and the NRA in his bedroom or something,” says one of the reporters from the conservative media company. “I just think they have a very hyperbolic view of what a conservative is.”
Yeah, I don’t think that’s it. I think the problem is that you are all fucking terrible. (And probably terrible at fucking to boot.)
Larry can relate: https://youtu.be/b93-RK-t3vY
@LittleLurker et al, this is such an excellent thread right now. Thank you everybody for making it so interesting! (since we’re online you can’t see me listening with all my ears, so I might as well say so out loud 🙂 )
I’ll just stick this here if I may?
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/mar/08/nypd-on-verge-of-arrest-in-harvey-weinstein-investigation
I met a guy who seemed like a fascist sympathizer at an English department event, of all places. I was talking about my Master’s project, which was about how Ezra Pound (writer, 1885-1972) used his art theories to justify fascism. The guy I was talking to said something like, “What’s so bad about fascism? He [Pound] had to be something.”
I didn’t think he was taking things seriously, so I mentioned Pound’s racism in the 1930s, and the guy said, “Well, anti-semitism isn’t really racism, is it?”
I didn’t have the presence of mind to explain why it was racism (because the Nazis and other fascists considered the Jews to be a separate “race”) and then he went back to saying how fascists weren’t really so bad… I think I drifted off to the snack table, my usual escaping-conversations method.
Part of this touches on what @LittleLurker said. Colloquially, in Canada*, “race” has to do with looks (skin colour, facial features), but “ethnicity”** with national or cultural background. So people with Jewish ancestry are usually considered white in terms of “race” but ethnically Jewish (and that could be specified further by terms like Ashkenazi or Sephardic, or by national origin – e.g. Czech, Polish, etc.).
This is by no means perfect, but it provides a way to say (for instance) that my aunt and cousin are ethnically Jewish, but not religious. My aunt finds her heritage important and wouldn’t want to leave it behind just because she doesn’t believe in God. It’s a matter of community as well as history – in Montreal, like in New York, there’s a substantial Jewish community.
*in my experience, anyway
**but “ethnic” can also be used as a racist dogwhistle to mean non-white; usually you can tell by people using it as a noun or saying “ethnic” something in a dismissive way
@Alan, re Weinstein: Good news if the arrest goes through this time. Fingers crossed.
@EJ (The Other One), re:
Thanks for taking this well. I speak a second language (French) which I understand far better than I can write/speak. Like, in a conversation a few weeks ago I forgot the word for yesterday, and tried explaining myself by saying “demain, mais a l’autre côté” (tomorrow, but on the other side), which is hardly idiomatic. 😛
Also (*puts on English tutor hat*), I think simplified English can sound stilted because it emphasizes repetition over flow of words. Especially in writing, there’s not much of a need to repeat words, and using synonyms will actually help with comprehension. On the plus side, it does make sense to avoid uncommon idioms and complex sentence structure. I’m no expert, though; you should ask your girlfriend for a better explanation.
But here is the problem. Two of the worst people I know in DC are not in politics but are consummate, worst of the worst right wing jerks.
They tell women they’re liberal/progressive and people are none the wiser for a long time.
At least the GOP people showing they’re republican right off the bat are being up front and honest.
I am scared for the women who end up the two fakers I know.
One of them should be a poster boy for the metoo / timesup movement.
Total machiavellian creeper.
Parenthetical passing thought about the language thing – depending on the first language of the person concerned, it can sometimes actually be easier rather than more difficult for them if the English speaker uses longer/”harder” words rather than the ones we tend to think of as “easier”, because the “hard” words for us are more likely to be of Latin origin rather than Anglo-Saxon which makes them easier to recognise or infer for anyone whose first language is in the Romance family.
Defenestration, ambulatory or obfuscate are way easier to work out for a native French/Italian/Catalan/Portuguese/Galician/Castilian/etc. speaker than the really notorious shit like get back/get in/get out/get over/get through/get down/get into/get on … 🙂
PS “tomorrow but on the other side” – brilliant. We’ve all been there, eh … 😀
@opposablethumbs
Exactly. I’m currently writing a postgrad prep course for ESL students, and my supervisor’s been saying pretty much the same thing about Anglo-Saxon terms, especially phrasal verbs (“Avoid them, Mish! Get rid of them!).
Also, defenestrate is possibly my favourite word – you have made me happy this morning!
Shall we get onto the cow/beef; pig/pork; sheep/mutton thing, and what that says about the Saxon/Norman class division?
@Mish
I dunno what that says about you ? ?
Defenestrate … that’s when you reformat the disk and obliterate all the OEM’s preinstalled junk, repartition, and then install Linux, right?
I love that there is an actual word for the act of throwing something out of a window. Language is fun!
@Mish, ha, yes, you will have seen firsthand the indignation and/or despair at how utterly arbitrary some of these idiomatic phrasal verbs can be 🙂 (I once briefly taught a little bit of ESL (or EFL???) and it really brings it home to you).
Defenestrate is a great word! I <3 words, they are so tasty. And I'm extra delighted to have serendipitously brought a smidgen of sunshine into your morning, particularly as I am currently recovering from having had a birthday yesterday 🙂
Good morning mammotheers! It's almost time for pancakes for breakfast (not the USAnian-style ones, which are clearly Scotch pancakes, but the other kind, the crêpes-style ones) specially designed to aid recovery on the morning-after-the-birthday-drink-the-night-before 🙂
@Shadow,
My favourite word, not my favourite activity ?
@opposablethumbs,
Happy (belated) birthday wishes! Your post is fabulous, especially this:
Wonderful alliteration for my Sunday morning! And in half an hour, I’m off to see A Woman of No Importance – performed in London, broadcast live in my local cinema. I’m all ready for some Wildean wisdom now <3
Aw, thank you @Mish!!!! :-)))))))) ::waves::
Hope the Wilde is/was a great performance!
@opposablethumbs
It was brilliant 🙂
Eve Best was my favourite, out of a stellar cast. I wasn’t sure how it would be, watching a play at the cinema (haven’t done it much), but overall it had certain advantages over being in the actual theatre (more close-ups, for one).
Hope you enjoyed your birthday, and your pancakes!
Don’t hold back with the word stuff, okay? I loves it.
I made too many pancakes (too many is a good number, I think, when it’s pancakes) and for once they weren’t that sweet so as well as the dulce de leche ones for breakfast (not me, I’m sugar-and-lemon all the way) we each had a ham-and-cheese-with-pepper one for supper. Weird but good. (I’m very much not the cook in this household, with a handful of specific exceptions all involving flour. Basically, Other Parent aka Their Dad does 95% of all cooking and I do the 5% that consists of pancakes, pizza base and cake).
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a play on film, as it were (if you don’t count the old Olivier Shakespeare films, that is, which are almost that). Technology is making live broadcasts more feasible, I suppose – I certainly seem to hear of it happening more often? I’m glad it was good! 🙂