The Kids Are Not Alright
Do young Democrats really hate Republicans more than vice-versa?
An odd survey is being reported by Axios under the headline “Young Dems more likely to despise the other party.”
Nearly a quarter of college students wouldn’t be friends with someone who voted for the other presidential candidate — with Democrats far more likely to dismiss people than Republicans — according to new Generation Lab/Axios polling.
Why it matters: Partisan divides — as each side inhabits parallel political, cultural and media universes —make a future of discord and distrust in the U.S. all the more likely.
By the numbers: 5% of Republicans said they wouldn’t be friends with someone from the opposite party, compared to 37% of Democrats.
*71% of Democrats wouldn’t go on a date with someone with opposing views, versus 31% of Republicans.
*30% of Democrats — and 7% of Republicans — wouldn’t work for someone who voted differently from them.
This . . . seems odd. While I get why Democrats see Trumpers as more evil than Republicans see Biden supporters, the size of the disparity is surprising. After all, the nature of polarization is that it goes both ways.
This provides some partial explanation:
Democrats argue that modern GOP positions, spearheaded by former President Trump — are far outside of the mainstream and polite conversation.
Some have expressed unyielding positions on matters of identity — including abortion, LGBTQ rights and immigration — where they argue human rights, and not just policy differences, are at stake.
But, again, I would expect those who strongly believed that gays and lesbians are gross or that transgenderism is an abomination would not want to hang out with those who strongly disagreed. But it may simply be a function of the out-group having fewer options.
Women are more likely than men to take a strong partisan stance in their personal choices.
*41% of women would go on a date with someone who voted for the opposing candidate, compared to 67% of men.
*76% of women would work for someone who voted for the other candidate, vs. 86% of men.
*Just 68% of women — compared to 84% of men — would shop at or support the business of someone of the other party.
I get the dating piece. Men are simply less choosy at that age. I’m not sure the work for/shop at data are that meaningful
From the data, I can’t tell how many college students they polled and what the percentage breakdown was along party ID. The footer of the report says it was “a representative sample of 850 students nationwide from 2-year and 4-year schools.”
Saw that headline and had two thoughts, immaturity and epistemic closure.
A few weeks ago the Times has a special section on ideas for updating the Constitution and other non- constitutional ideas that America should incorporate. One writer brought up the concept of a mandatory year of national service. When the draft was in effect, military service provided an opportunity for mixing the population, but that has passed with the volunteer military. But it becomes more and more apparent that society needs to do something to get people out of their social/political silos. Social media could have been one method, but the logarithms are increasing the sort.
@Sleeping Dog: and the first cohort should be the advocates of that plan.
I really think the issue is that politics has become the main center of conversation in everyday life. Now, granted, college kids are trying on politics as part of their maturation process but it has become even more emphasized. Really need to get back to a more balanced approach to topics such as music, sports, sex, drinking, and drugs.
If you’ve been raised to believe that inclusion isn’t just nice but necessary and moral, I can see how these lines get drawn.
Since friendship is a choice, willingly choosing to spend time with those who are actively working to roll back rights that you’ve been taught are morally correct would be odd at best. These questions are hypothetical to an extent too.
And, there’s also the issue of sample size.
My sense is that a lot of Tea Party / Trump-era Republicans, particularly among teens and 20-somethings, are mainly in it for the sh*t-posting not the actual policy or moral positions. They enjoy the performative @ssholishness and “you’re not the boss of me” posturing, and they find Lefty identitarianism and woke scolding grating, but they don’t actually have strong personal views on culture war issues. They bristle at being shamed for laughing at “gay jokes”, and they enjoy trollish pushback from the Right, but they don’t really have any particular animus toward gay people beyond a dismissive sense of superiority toward them and a vague squeamishness about the lifestyle. In short, it’s largely just entertainment and cathartic trolling for them, and there’s no reason to let a bit of fun get in the way of “real” things like relationships and careers.
Most modern progressives, on the other hand, again particularly among teens and 20-somethings, really do believe in the moral underpinnings of their political positions. Political affiliation is a moral issue for them – it’s not just a bit of fun or cathartic release – and moral compatibility is an important element of “real” things like relationships and careers.
Republicans chose to initiate the polarization&demonization of Democrats as a deliberate strategy and are now shocked they’re losing ?
Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.
What, James, you thought you’d be able to talk about killing Democrats because They’re All Evil Dontchaknow and have it be just some fun cute little game “only you” play amongst yourselves?
You didn’t take into account the reality that… People don’t like being demonized and will eventually ramp up to the level at which they’re being attacked. Put another way, you have to punch the bully in the face.
Republicans got exactly what they wanted. Reap the whirlwind.
@Gavin:
I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.
This result makes perfect sense to me. I wonder if the reason you find it odd is because of the need to see our current political discord as symmetrical? Joe Biden is a decent human being. If you support him it may speak to a political naivete but it doesn’t say anything about your moral character. Trump is a loud and proud racist, a bigot, sexist. He is credibly accused of rape or sexual assault by more than a dozen women. He lies constantly, attempted to violently overthrow our presidential election, and made it a matter of policy to take children from their parents, throw the parents out of the country and keep no records of who the children belong to, sending them to orphanages instead. Supporting Donald Trump absolutely says something about your moral and ethical character.
Would you find it out that drug dealers are more willing to date non-drug dealers than vice versa?
@R. Dave:
Indeed, trolls often don’t like it when their behavior bites them in the ass IRL. When the GOP embraced troll culture (and arguably mimed it effectively for decades before), it attracts people who think it’s OK to be absolute asshats to certain groups in one breath and be shocked that nobody wants to hang out with a bigot in the other. It doesn’t mean anything to them, certainly not enough to suffer consequences; the Youtube video The Card Says Moops demonstrates this mindset for them. Reality and their adherence to a belief is flexible because the point is to win / be superior/ own the libs. They parrot the hate without being committed to it and can disavow it at will when it hurts them in an unacceptable way. When they come across someone who either takes them at their word or wants nothing to do with some so empty or two-faced, they get mad. Liberals actually care that it’s Moors, not Moops and loling that a misprint is real just to “win” doesn’t make you friends or get you a partner. At best, it’s a sign of rampant immaturity that can and will carry over to daily life (and who needs that crap?); at worst, it’s a red flag for abuse, violence, conspiracy theory nonsense and other dangerous things (you’re willing to lie about an obvious basic fact to preserve your worldview, what else will you do?)
@R. Dave:
Yep. It’s a way to be transgressive.
The trouble with this is that “Republican”, today, inexorably means Trump.
I have dated Republicans. Some of my dearest friends are Republicans.
I do not, and will not, have ANYTHING to do with Trump supporters.
I have turned down dates with truly beautiful women. I have severed several friendships. And I have ceased to patronize business establishments.
These were NOT, are NOT, political statements.
It is a principled stand on based on morals, ethics, capacity for rational thought, compassion and empathy, connection to reality, and love of country.
I don’t find it the least bit surprising. One side has ideals, the other side only has desires. Idealists vs. narcissists. The liberal/progressive thinks about things beyond themselves, beyond their immediate, personal desires. MAGAts don’t think beyond, ‘I want.’ Girl tits: me want. You know, if you’re famous you can grab ’em by the pussy. Romantics generally have higher standards than molesters.
BTW, it’s not just college kids. I would never knowingly work with a MAGAt, let alone spend time with one. I avoid patronizing Republican-affiliated companies and will not spend travel dollars in MAGA states.
Who knows how accurate the survey is? But I would say that compulsive lying and excusing it or explaining it away are obviously not political. These are just not qualities humans enjoy in others. “Sure this guy says awful things, but it’s on you to deal with and overlook it and be his buddy”–this is not how anything works in real life.
Teve said it nice and succinctly – “Shitty people with shitty values”.
Both my sister and myself know a lot of conservatives from our school days (small towns are like that). She has more contact with them, because she still lives in the area. She says that some you can’t talk to, they are full of aggressive hostility based on lies which make conversation impossible. Others are still sociable and yet, as she said to me a few weeks ago, “I don’t think I can ever place any value on their opinion or judgement again”. And it isn’t just Trump, it’s also covid.
And if you don’t think their judgement has value, dating is kind of out of the question.
I suspect those who are educated and accused of being in the TIDE-POD eating generation have had it with the mental deterioration of those who are loud, less educated, and part of the LEAD PAINT CHIP eating generation!
@James Joyner:
Same here, maybe the upvotes are from people who were entertained by Gavin’s post, but I do not hang out at this site because you wake up every morning, put up a post that says all woke lefties should die, and then go back to your day job and rinse and repeat the post the day after, and so on and so forth, lol!!
I say this a fairly woke “leftie” (but I like to think I lean Independent, not really a true blue Democrat, but far from a Republican), so if I am missing the fact that the sub-text of your posts is that all woke folks should shuffle off this mortal coil, maybe I am clueless or just a glutton for punishment because I just can’t quit this site.
Or maybe, just maybe, when a student moves away from a home and local church (that has told them their whole life that gays and lesbians are gross and trans are abdominal) to arrive on campus only to meet actual LGBT peers who turn out to be just fellow human beings trying to live their true lives.
I don’t find these results surprising either. The thing is that the drivers of polarization in media, institutions, and political organs of the right are lying when they say that today’s leftists are Satan-worshipping, blood-drinking pedophiles trying to destroy the American way of life. But, those polarization drivers from the left may be strident and generalizing, but they are basically truthful when they say that today’s rightists are at least welcoming to white supremacists and sexists (if not actually being these bigots themselves) and that they are trying to undermine American democracy.
I can be friends with someone who holds a different ideological philosophy. That can lead to spirited debates on policy and outcomes. But, I can‘t abide racists and sexists or their enablers.
Leaving aside the tedious cross-partisan characterisations, this rather seems more remarkable for the typical journo habit of extrapolating from a familiar near-peer set (University Students) to a characterise much more broadly than one should (kids / youth / generational cohort).
So a small sample set – not really clearly communicated – for Uni students, which are an absolute minority of overall, yes? Bad journalism really from what info is available.
Personally, I’d take this as evidence the kids ARE alright. What with GOPs likely to take both houses in the midterms, plans to steal the 2024 election proceeding afoot, and GOPs successfully killing the 1/6 committee with delay, this is the best news I’ve seen this month. (And I suspect if your a liberal in a community college in Gritsby, KS you keep quiet about it if you want a date.)
But this isn’t news. Conservative men have been bitching loudly for years that they can’t get dates. They’ve founded a whole incel movement to bitch about it. And of course in their view it’s wholly the fault of the women. It isn’t your father’s Republican Party any more. A little soul-searching by Rs on why young people dislike them might be in order. But self-awareness has never been a front line virtue with conservatives.
The data I found quickly is either old or doesn’t go younger than 25. But college age kids are something like 2:1 D. We know college grads lean heavily D, so I suspect actual college students lean D even heavier than 2:1. The asymmetry in the numbers may just represent that Rs who cut themselves off from Ds would be cutting themselves off from most of student society.
@MarkedMan: OK, why is autocorrect changing “odd” to “out”? I fixed it once in the above comment but just realized it did it again at the end…
It’s been a long time since I was in college but I do have 2 sons that have recently matriculated from a large state school in the midwest. I also interact with kids at college sporting events and backyard BBQ’s. These kids seem similar to my college experiences from the early 80’s; getting intoxicated, looking for a way to graduate while putting forth the least possible effort, and most importantly, finding companionship for the coming evening.
Not once have I heard discussions break out at the tailgate speculating on the politics of a potential love interest. In fact, most seem to have no real interest in politics unless it is a Tic Tok video depicting a humorous take on a current event. Now maybe my sample size is skewed but I would also like to see the survey’s demographics (public/private school, Juco, majors, location, etc). Call me skeptical on these results.
@James Joyner:
The kindest reading I can give that is it’s a tortured sentence — i.e. the first “you” in that sentence is actually referring to you and the “you’d” (“you’d be able to talk about killing Democrats”) is switching to refer to the rightwing media complex.
Otherwise, it’s an unfair characterization of you and your stance towards Democrats or people you disagree with in general.
I think the poll should be nationwide 850 college aged students, not just college students. A poll of 850 college students is not representative of all of America’s youth…
I too demur from Gavin’s comment as it applies to James. I haven’t been here as long as some, but I’ve never seen that kind of attitude from him.
I wonder if Gavin’s post didn’t use the “abstract second person” which I’ve found myself using and had to correct from time to time. As such, when I used it, it didn’t specify a particular person, just “you people” or “those guys”.
However, it’s ripe for misinterpretation, so I get rid of it whenever I can.
I can see, though, that there’s a kind of “sow the storm, reap the whirlwind” dynamic going on. As @Jim Brown so ably has described, conservatives/conservative media has been demonizing liberals and the left for quite some time. For years, maybe decades the left was “yeah, whatever” about it. But Trump, covid and Jan 6 was just too much.
@MarkedMan:
Well, autocorrect changed “abominable” to “abdominal” for me. Ha. Sometimes you just have to roll with it and hope you are understood.
@James Joyner: “You’d” seems obviously a reference to GOPs generally, not you specifically.
Just one recent example that happened to rise to prominence of what @Gavin: is talking about, along with Gosar’s cartoon about stabbing AOC and Biden. Remember “Second Amendment solutions”? I chuckle every time I see a GOP who slightly crossed the MAGAts complaining about getting death threats from GOPs. Snowflakes. It’s routine for AOC or Ilhan Omar or Nancy Pelosi to get death threats from GOPs. Being called a libturd or a Demoncrat doesn’t even register anymore, but I do resent being called a traitor by people who are OK with 1/6.
It’s possible that college students who identify as Republican (when given a forced choice) are a bit more diverse and complex than the knuckle dragging, Trump worshipping, Capitol destroying mouth breathers that are free associated to by non-college aged, non(anti)-Republican, political blog commentators. Or not.
@Mimai:
So your position is that there is a (largely secret) movement of diverse and complex never-Trumpers in colleges around the country? And they simply have not yet been recognized by…well…pretty much anyone?
@Daryl and his brother Darryl:
Yes, that is exactly my position. 🙂
@Mimai: The natural follows-on, then: What are the policies this diverse and complex group espouses that make it “Republican” but are not simply parallel to the current crop of reality-challenged liberty-means-I-win orcs? And, equally, which policies make them “not Democrats” (if forced to choose)?
@Mimai:
I’m going to stop you right there. If given a binary choice (D or R) and you pick R, you pick everything that goes with it because….??? What is it that makes such a repugnant mentality as the GOP and its adherents is currently demonstrating the lesser of two evils? Abortion, guns, taxes, hate, freedumb, the delusional belief that conservatism can be brought back to some pre-Trump golden era of sanity, sheer contrariness or Don’t Tell Me What to Do?
Answer that question and you’ll understand the numbers above. At some point, you have to make a choice in life and when your choice is MAGA, that says something about you. It’s not other people’s fault that what it says is unpleasant. Liberalism and Dems are not perfect but when compared to the other choice, it not a good sign of character if you keep choosing to be associated with the monstrosity the GOP has become.
@Mimai:
Okay….but why remain secret? Isn’t the right time to come out of the shadows before Trump locks up the nomination again?
I get it, in the past you would put up posts asking us if we would consider engaging with Republicans, and you would sometimes get replies that were a bit dismissive and did not lead to a productive conversation, but we need these “hidden” anti-Trump Republican’s to come out of the shadows so we can reach out to them and engage in a conversation.
Right now, the GOP is letting folks like Boebert and MTG be their standard bearers, folks who declare that Democrats hate Christmas but then put up family photos where everyone is holding an assault weapon.
I would love to have a conversation with a Republican who feels that Mary and Joseph would have preferred that the three Wise Men showed up with Assault weapons as gifts instead of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.
Again, if these diverse and complex future Republican leaders only come out of the woodwork after Trump is re-elected to say to Democrats, well if only you had been willing to engage with us we could have helped spread the message not to re-elect Trump, well…it is a bit late to be chiding us liberals for not being willing to engage with Conservatives after the horse has left the barn (Trump’s re-election).
These Conservatives need to come out of “hiding” now not later, and I bet a lot of them will be pleasantly surprised to learn that myself and many other liberals will be happy to engage in a conversation with them about coming together (compromise) to discuss how we might all work together to ensure a brighter more positive future for this great country.
Remaining hidden just sends the message to me that these near impossible to spot in the wild diverse and complex Republicans do not want to engage with me. If I reach out my hand and no one bothers to grasp it and complete the handshake, then I am reaching out to the void.
In that case, blaming liberals for Conservatives unwillingness to engage with liberals is just…wrong.
It has been brought up many times on this site, but if I send out a boat/Truck/Helicopter and Conservatives reject them all and just complain that I am not willing to come together with them to formulate a brighter future, am I really to blame? After all, Conservatives need to meet us part of the way, and remaining hidden is not meeting anyone part of the way.
There’s a lack of transparency in the polling methods (sigh), but it is my understanding that the respondents were college students. I then assume that we are talking mostly about 18-22 year olds.
Given these assumptions, I offer the following:
-The respondents are at a critical developmental period (who am I? what do I believe?).
-The respondents are colliding (in many cases, for the first time) with new people, viewpoints, and lifestyles that are very different than what they marinated in as youth.
-The respondents are still heavily influenced by their parents and other formerly close associates when applying labels to themselves.
-The respondents have not thought deeply about political policies.
In short, these are kids who are beginning the process of figuring themselves out. And they are doing so in increasingly complex (and poisonous) social milieus. I stand by my initial suggestion that they are more diverse and complex than the caricatures being painted.
@Mimai:
You are mistaking sociology and citizenship with society. Nobody is under any obligation to be friends with another person, let alone date them.
@Mimai:
Yes, of course they are more than their party label, but when your party label is Communist or Nazi or Khmer Rouge, you support evil. Maybe you love puppies, but do you also support evil? Then we’re not going to invite you to the puppy-lovers get-together, now are we? “I’m a Klansman, but I’m also an artist!” “I’m a pedophile who is also a careful driver.” “I love the taste of human flesh, but hey, have you seen my photography?”
You seem not to understand that there is a moral dimension here. A rejection of evil, an unwillingness to have evil people in your life. Why in fuck’s name would I want some MAGA coming over for coffee? Is there a shortage of decent people to associate with?
@ptfe:
As someone who actually has at least one site run by college republicans on his RSS feed, allow me to offer a quick bullet list.
* Freedom of religion
* Opposition to restrictive speech codes (as defined by FIRE)
* Opposition to segregated housing and facilities
* Wanting tuition money to go to education, not DIE administrators
* Having pizza, tacos, and fried rice in the cafeteria (without being accused of cultural appropriation)
There’s other stuff that’s reactionary bullshit, but there’s also a lot of pushback against aggressive progressives insisting that a white girl with dreadlocks is somehow racist or other such silliness.
There’s a non-insignificant amount of “If that’s what it means to be a democrat, then I’m picking the other side”. College-age hyper-liberals can be very in-your-face about stuff that really isn’t a big deal.
@Mu Yixiao:
Annnnddd this is where we check out, as that’s utter BS. That’s not a thing like CRT isn’t a thing – somebody is mad they got called out for legit cultural appropriation or being a racist asshat while holding a pizza slice and is like “what, now we can’t have pizza because it’s not PC?!!?!” Unless there’s vid of it happening, it’s all in their heads.
This is the kind of thing driving the poll above. Liberals can be annoying and utterly persnickety on idiocy but this? Nobody’s dating the guy that claims pizza and tacos are in danger from liberal overzealousness. You need to be deep in the Snowflake Zone for that to even make sense to yourself.
I’m taking the Godwin Exception of Godwin’s Law.
It’s very likely some Nazis might befriend, work for, or even date a Jew. The reverse is not true. For some reason, Jews demonize Nazis more.
@Mimai: I think this is a valid point, at least for one half of the chart.
A self-proclaimed Democrat – given the choice of hundreds of people they might want to date – is unlikely to want to date a self-proclaimed Republican because, as many people are noting, once you stick that label on yourself, you’ve attached yourself to the trolls and it becomes questionable whether you should be trusted with anything more complicated than a toothbrush. It should surprise no one that a typical Dem would simply avoid Republicans in that pool.
But you very well could be more right about the Republican side, where people who grew up in a house that would start an anti-Biden chant at the local racetrack are suddenly finding that maybe they were a little bit racist and a little bit privileged and a little bit sheltered and a little bit…well, wrong about the world. It’s so very hard, though, to remove that Republican label, especially when you grew up thinking it was another word for pure evil.
@KM:
Will an article from the Atlantic do?
Umm…. I’m not sure where you’re going there.
The conservatives are saying “Hey, it’s just fried rice, leave us alone”. The agitative left are the ones saying “I won’t date anyone who would appropriate a culture like that.”
I’m simply describing what the self-described college conservatives are saying.
Remember: We’re currently locked into a binary choice. So those in the middle have to choose if they want to be identified as “the crazy people who are protesting sushi” or “the crazy people who follow Trump”.
I’m not saying that they’re making smart choices. They’re college students, they don’t do nuance very well, and they tend to be very tied to group identities.
But you’re making the case that “The only reason they don’t identify as Democrat is because they’re evil racists. And that’s just not true.
@ptfe: [edit: “especially when you grew up thinking Democrat was another word for pure evil.”]
@Mu Yixiao: The the chronicle of higher education did a deep dive into that story and it turned out that it was misrepresented and blown waaaay out of proportion. I pasted the vox article b/c I had trouble getting the whole CHE article.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/11/5/20944138/oberlin-banh-mi-college-campus-diversity
That nonsense at Oberlin was misrepresented.
https://www.vox.com/identities/2019/11/5/20944138/oberlin-banh-mi-college-campus-diversity
College conservatives are JUST as likely to get wound up and unglued about minutia as their liberal counterparts, if not slightly more so because they’ve been conditioned to believe that they are some kind of oppressed minority themselves.
@Mike in Arlington: Ha, great minds or something like that… 😀
@Mimai:
Got any data to back it up? Or just your feelings?
@Mu Yixiao:
That’s not the case he made at all. And this is why young Democrats avoid Republicans. Republicans and their apologists are dishonest and full of shit. And young liberals are sick of being lied to, bullshitted, and gaslighted.
The case he made was that there’s no real crisis of folks protesting pizza and fried rice, and young Democrats do not want to associate with bullshitters who pretend that’s an excuse to support policies that are *actually* destructive: vote suppression, forced birth, white nationalism, etc.
Young liberals are not going to date someone who supports the Trumpist destruction of American democracy, a serious threat, based on the phony pretense there’s some outsized left-wing movement against pizza and fried rice, a non-threat. Why? Because anyone making such a comparison is totally full of shit. Bullshit is all the rage on the mainstream right now thanks to Trump, the King of Bullshit. I don’t blame liberal kids who don’t want to be around bullshit.
@Mu Yixiao:
You’re not really helping your case by talking about the right’s absurd overhyping of a nothing-burger story about bad dorm food at Oberlin. Not exactly a threat to traditional culture.
@gVOR08: Oops. Didn’t see @Mike in Arlington: and @Jen: beat me to it. So I apologize for piling on, but the point stands.
@Mu Yixiao: @Mu Yixiao:
Except that’s not what happened. Bad food got called out for not being what it said it was – if you put ketchup on white bread and call it pizza, then yeah it’s culturally offensive to practically everybody and moreover, it’s misrepresentation trying to capitalize on cultural cache. Like labeling any ole thing organic because that’s what is hot now and not what it really is.
Nobody went up to a random student and said “How dare you eat a food not of your own culture?!?!” That’s a straight up myth and *EXACTLY* my point of why these folks are undatable. They want it to be true so they can cry how they are oppressed for just eating a reasonable meal by cruel libs out to ruin their day. They took a blatant lie and now it’s canon to the point you’re here repeating what some rando posted in his whine session as gospel. He’s lying or willing to accept the lie and in the end it makes little difference since all it does it push the false reality he chooses to believe.
Nobody was protesting sushi as being unPC. They were complaining about crap food being labeled sushi. Therefore the choice was really “the crazy people who follow Trump and believe lies about libs hating on sushi ” and “students telling their school to stop calling any old thing sushi for the youth cred”. Now….. which one seems like the sane choice?
No, I’m making the point these people making up their own reality and then get pissy none of us want to be associated with it. Now that reality can be racist and hateful in nature or just plain playing martyr like this was but in the end, the choice of conservatism in this day and age is to choose this behavior and all the dirt it’s rolled in…. and it affects how people perceive you. What’s the saying – you lay down with dog and get fleas? Choosing to be GOP is choosing to be associated with this, whether you agree with it personally or not.
In the end, if your chosen tribal identity can’t get you dates outside the tribe, that’s on you. Nobody owes you a date or friendship or their labor – if you can’t get somebody to spend time with you because of who you chose to be…… c’est la vie. Date within the tribe, that’s always an option!
@Mu Yixiao: @Mu Yixiao:This is, at best tangential to the discussion, because I accept that these non-Trump Republicans may believe the things you listed about themselves, but I feel compelled to point out that they are purest BS. Let me take them one by one:
* Freedom of religion
Republicans are almost found opposing freedom of religion. For decades, they comprise the bulk of those opposing the building of mosques in communities, allowing prisoners to shave or dress according to their dictates, fighting to keep only Christian prayers and symbols in the public arena, and so forth. What these Republicans call “Freedom of Religion” is simply “Crushing any opposition to imposing Christianity as a de facto state religion.”
* Opposition to restrictive speech codes (as defined by FIRE)
This is a true case of both siderism. The Republicans are no different from Dems or progressives when it comes to flaming out at those who dare to speak truths they don’t like. They most certainly are no champions of free speech
* Opposition to segregated housing and facilities
This is just bizarre. They define segregation in warped and twisted ways, and then call themselves champions of desegregation. Ronald Reagan literally led off his campaign with an obvious endorsement of segregation, and things have only gone down since then.
* Wanting tuition money to go to education, not DIE administrators
What are DIE administrators? And, FWIW, the more Republican an area the less funding for actual education and the more funding for sports
* Having pizza, tacos, and fried rice in the cafeteria (without being accused of cultural appropriation)
Sure.
@Mu Yixiao:
Anyone who thinks they’re going to get between a college kid and a pizza is smoking better stuff than I’m getting.
But that said, you are right that the obnoxious far left are geniuses at alienating people while accomplishing nothing of consequence. I’ve been warning since at least 2015 that this would happen. . . then that it was happening. . . and now that I wish it would stop happening. When college kids and professors define the left we end up looking like fucking idiots.
I disagree with some upstream that it’s all misunderstanding. I think people understand it just fine when they’re attacked for nonsensical reasons by privileged sophomores. Cultural appropriation is a fantastically stupid idea that the left embraced without giving it ten seconds’ worth of thought. Like Defund. Like LatinX. Like cis-men and cis-women and the pronoun police. We keep throwing bit, fat softballs and then whining when they get knocked out of the park.
We are supposed to be moving forward, but all we seem able to do is to push the pendulum to the left so it can be pushed back from the right. Lots of to-and-fro, not so much forward.
I would also like to address another dimension we haven’t really spoken of – liberals who’ve been hurt by conservative family and friends because of QAnon issues and that’s spread to a general unwillingness to associate with GOP voters.
If you’ve dealt with that insanity or know someone who’s been affected by it negatively, it’s gonna taint your worldview. Ducking calls from crazy grandma who’s screaming about 5G vaccine mandates or seeing your roommate not be able to go home for the holidays because their family’s gone full conspiracy theory dampens one’s ardor towards a person willing choosing that ideology. Women are on the verge of losing bodily autonomy and you’re asking them to sleep with a guy that thinks it’s a good thing? Conservatives are attacking school boards over masks, the urge to burn books and CRT on the grass roots level aka the school level. You know, where college kids just came from? They’ve seen how families are being torn about by the Big Lie and COVID denial so picking conservatism in college – meaning 2021 conservatism – is essentially siding with the nuts that have made their lives difficult for the last few years.
I’m with the others…
The Kids are Indeed, Alright.
It’s the boomers – and more specially the white, male, poorly educated, bible thumping, gun toting horde of deplorables who are the cancer eating away at the soul of our nation.
If we could somehow round up these MAGAcretins and exchange them for those they most despise – faithful Muslims and the hard-working, family loving downtrodden from 3rd world nations like Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, we’d find ourselves a more peaceful, more cohesive and more prosperous nation.
The excision of this cancerous horde might be just enough to rekindle the faintest of glimmers in that City on a Hill.
@Daryl and his brother Darryl: I was being cheeky. Because I didn’t get the impression that you were actually trying to represent my view. Clearly, I failed.
My point was rather narrow – the respondents (college students) to the poll who identified as R are likely more diverse than many commenters assume. See also my followup here @Mimai:
In terms of data, I do not have any that would satisfy my own standards for good science. That said, I do have A LOT of experience with current college students – as an instructor, research mentor, and clinician. I stand by my initial suggestion.
@inhumans99: See above. Sorry that my lack of clarity lead you to spill ink arguing against it. I don’t disagree with anything you wrote. And I believe you when you say that you are sincerely interested in having such conversations.
Let’s simplify things: would a normal person be more or less likely to go out with a crazy person than vice versa?
Ok, I read that article. A banh mi on ciabatta bread with pulled pork and coleslaw? That should be a culinary capital offense. Beef curry for the Indian students on Diwali? Ok, try this. Invite some Texans over. Tell them you are making authentic Texas chile and give them something made with chicken, bland and lots of beans. Wait for the complaints. Hope you dont get shot.
Steve
I’m with Reynolds on this….
If I can control it, I will not knowingly do business with any MAGA cultist. I had a contractor come to my house a few weeks ago, with a Trump bumper sticker. I told him flat out his bumper sticker was the reason I wasn’t going get the $15,000 job. He told me to fuck myself. Fair enough. Crisis avoided.
@steve:
Not a capital offense but a second degree felony for sure.
@EddieInCA: Wait. Doesn’t that make you one of the lefty activists that Reynolds says are pointlessly provoking the common clay?? I’m so confused.
Liberals believe they are better people as evidenced in these comments. They are always praising themselves as smarter, more generous, more tolerant and on and on. They are so blinded by their self-righteousness they cannot see anyone else clearly. They see only a distorted image of the others who do not confirm every idea that sparkles from their lovely minds. If you are not one of us, the saintly good and wise, you can only be the opposite, a reprehensible wretch. Please, turn your ever critical eye inward and get over yourselves.
I know three “mixed political party” couples here in my little town, and not one of their marriages survived Trump. They survived Bush and Obama, but not Trump. I would feel differently about my boyfriend if he was a Trump supporter. Luckily for me, he is not, despite being a Republican. 😛
@Michael Reynolds:
Biden, Pelosi, Schumer and the empirically powerful politicians on the left have actually not embraced or centered Defund or LatinX. They’re actually focused on COVID fixes, voting rights, infrastructure, climate change, reducing the racial wealth gap…you know, serious issues.
Whereas Trump, McConnell, McQarthy et al actually *have* embraced QAnon, the Jan 6 terrorists, and the dismantling of American democracy via white nationalist fascism. Dangerous, real threats.
It’s the difference between bullshit Twittersphere clickbait culture war teapot tempests designed to distract and divide vs important policies and actual, real threats to America.
The youth of America clearly know the difference, and good for them.
But mainstream left politicians must do better at branding, messaging, and working the refs — so the reality is not overshadowed by the barrage of bullshit and nonsense from the corporate media, the fringe right, and the fringe left. Easier said than done when wide swaths of the country are awash in the Fox News “War On Christmas” “CRT race baiting” “Cancel Big Bird” bullshit machine.
@inhumans99:
“I would love to have a conversation with a Republican who feels that Mary and Joseph would have preferred that the three Wise Men showed up with Assault weapons as gifts instead of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.”
You’ve given me an idea for a new Christmas song, “The Little Gunner Boy”
♫I’ve brought some guns for him Pa rum pum pum pum ♪
♪ And lots of ammo too Pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, Rum pum pum pum♫
Maybe I could get royalties from Hannity.
@Raoul:
“Let’s simplify things: would a normal person be more or less likely to go out with a crazy person than vice versa?”
That sums it up perfectly.
@Jax:
2016 changed everything.
@Michael Reynolds:
Cultural appropriation can be a very legitimate thing to complain about — if you are taking someone’s sacred traditions and practices as mere fashion, you’re being a complete dick. No serious person is bothered by non-Japanese enjoying sushi or tentacle porn but if your weekend entertainment is to pantomime out someone’s religious rituals as a party trick, that’s stupid and tacky and it’s on you when people take offense.
Also, cis-men and cis-women are by far the majority. Of course we embrace them. Oh, you mean the label. Do you know an easier way to keep Republicans away on dating sites and the like?
@Gustopher: It’s why women often list their degrees on dating sites as well. A Ph.D. is pretty good jerk repellant, I’ve been told.
There is no shock to this at all:
Trumplicans & some republicans think with their reptile brain and dicks… So, target sighted, target acquired, goin’ for it! Ger ‘er dun!!!
Democrats think. So, no fcukin’ way!
Oh, and @BC – I read your comment, and realize that while irony may have been on its last legs after 4 years of Trump, ya killed it. Nice job there.
The kids are, in fact, alright.
Republicans as a complete whole think it’s OK to ban/demonize others “from far away” [Mexicans, black people, Middle Easterns, Jews, etc] but are then shocked when Democratic women don’t want to date a person whose personal value is a hatred of other humans?
If Republicans don’t like that generalization, they need to stop being snowflakes. It’s fun to see the “party of personal responsibility” take no responsibility for their personality. Mimai can’t provide any details about The Deep Complexity Of Some Republican Childs.. because these fantasy theoretical kids do not exist – not one.
If a person has any scintilla of actual concern for other people [eg, follows the Platinum Rule of Treating Other People As They Want To Be Treated] that person has a 100% chance of being a Democrat.. and for that reason alone any father who actually cares about his daughter will tell his daughter not to date Republicans.
There is a 100% chance that any Democratic woman who’s weak/lonely enough to sleep with a Republican man… will be the butt of jokes back amongst the Republican guy’s friends – “I got her and own her, haha.”
Lifelong Republicans claiming to care about people….. are lying, period dot end of story. “Tolerance” and hatred are polar opposites — Republicans get to pick one, and it’s on Republicans to change.. because they haven’t done the work to deserve the benefit of the doubt [aka tolerance]. Since at present Republicans want to hate, that hate will rightfully be reflected back at them. And there is no “Haha libs you’re not being tolerant of my hatred!” — That’s not a thing, and should receive the response “And I never will, racist troll.”
When people tell you who they are.. believe them.