Conservatives seem to think it’s grossly unfair that Nearly half of college students wouldn’t “dorm across the aisle”. Look! Republican students are more willing to share a room with a Democrat.
This being Axios, no one thinks to wonder why. Have they considered the possibility that so many far right Republicans have proven themselves to be violent and bigoted? As a college freshman, I had a roommate who was racist and thoroughly unpleasant…am I supposed to have signed up for another semester with him? I don’t think so.
And likewise, what’s with this expectation that we ought to tolerate a Republican as a marriage partner?
46% said they would probably/definitely not room with someone who supported the opposing presidential candidate in 2020 (62% of Dems, 28% of GOP).
53% said they would probably/definitely not go on a date with someone who supported the other side in 2020.
63% said they would probably/definitely not marry someone who supported the other 2020 candidate.
Madness. You should look for compatibility in a partner, and there’s nothing wrong with that. And yet, conservatives are outraged that progressives won’t have sex with them — preferably via the straitjacket of “enforced monogamy” — as if intimacy is supposed to be delivered on demand to anyone who asks for it. The fact that liberal men would rather poke Ann Coulter with a stick, or that liberal women are creeped out by Ben Shapiro, is a sign that liberals are really the intolerant ones. Amanda Marcotte understands what’s really going on.
On the right, there was a lot of trumpeting how this supposedly proves the left are the ones who are “really” intolerant. Radio talker Matt Murphy whined that liberals “don’t believe in our republic cannot abide people who think differently than them.” As if not getting to have sex with or go to parties with liberals is exactly the same as having your basic rights as a citizen stripped from you. “This doesn’t bode well,” complained GOP lawyer and ABC commentator Sarah Isgur, who previously defended the Trump administration’s policy of separating families at the U.S.-Mexico border as a former spokesperson in the Justice Department.
“My most fascinating friendships have always come from ‘the other side,'” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough tweeted, noting that, as a Republican, he “always benefitted” from those conversations. As many people pointed out in response, however, that a Republican like Scarborough gained from friendships with people like “John Lewis, Elijah Cummings, Ron Dellums, and Maxine Waters” doesn’t mean the reverse is true. And that is most likely what this polling is picking up.
I think most liberals would consider a relationship to be a mutual partnership, where both gain reciprocally, rather than something where one side benefits. You enter into it by mutual agreement, not because you are ordered to do so.
Don’t blame the liberals. This is all on the conservatives, who have all been racing to be extreme authoritarian assholes with a sense of entitlement to your room, your life, and your sex, who no one wants to fuck.
There this liberal notion (that is, of course, exploited by the right) that political or religious opinions are somehow not indictive of one’s moral character. “Sure your room mate maybe a misogynist, a racist, a Social Dwarinist, a capitalist, a theist, but that doesn’t mean they’re a “bad” person! You have to separate the person from their beliefs!”
Paradox of tolerance. I simply will not be tolerant of people whose core values are intolerant. That’s a good thing, and we need to do a better job promoting that as a good thing.
My dorm mate in college was a hardcore ex-army republican. He had a laserdisc collection so that tells you when this was. 2000 came along and Gore v. Bush and he kept insisting that Gore was “a piece of wood”. Better a piece of wood than a box of rocks. I’m 100% sure he’s a full on MAGA head now.
For some reason they seem to like incompetent assholes who have lots of, shall we say, “personality” but lack actual skills.
@ 2
And that usually results in the now-cliched fascist battlecry “SO MUCH FOR THE TOLERANT LEFT!!!”
Back in the 90s, when I was a College Republican, we had one officer who was an Italian American “wiseguy” wannabe who was a real bona fide asshole. The last I heard of him was during the 2016 presidential when a local newspaper article reported that he was harassing Democrarts on social media.
At first glance, this looks like a weakness in the interpretation; equating your presidential choice in 2020 with party affiliation. There might (in theory) exist “reasonable” Republicans who still identify with that party even though they realized what a horrible failure Donald Trump was as a president and as a person.
However, such “reasonable” Republicans are being driven from the party. Just ask Liz Cheney.
We have the same sort of statistics here in the UK. Sane people wouldn’t touch Tories with a barge pole, and the Tories wonder why and think it unfair. Mind you, it’s not like they’re an attractive bunch in the first place, unless you’ve got a weird fetish for heartless octogenarians in barbour jackets.
Of course, when you’re a Marxist-Socialist-Anarchist like me, and 99% of the population are too far to the right to consider sex with, it’s a convenient excuse for never getting any. “Oh dear, Owen Jones turned me down again, well, that’s my dating pool exhausted, guess it’s another evening of pizza and crisps.
I do have friends and family members who are Tories (in the sense that they’ve always voted Tory or abstained, but are not actual party members), although admittedly not many. Watching the Brexit debacle unfold, some have backed away from their previous support for the party (which was always more economic than social) while a few others have doubled down in the cult. In those instances it’s been like waking up bleary-eyed to an excited 6am phone call from your PhD astrophysics friend asking you if you’ve realised the wondrous benefits of crystal healing.
Alternative headline:
Poll suggests Republicans significantly less likeable than Democrats.
You know the Marcotte article is almost 9 months old, right? As is the study she cites.
Around here, we got more than two parties, luckily. Of course I don’t have a problem with my friends or partners voting for a different party than I, but there are some political affiliations I really have a problem with. Knew quite a few mainline conservatives I got along well with, but did not end up friends with them – not a conscious decision, just to much differences on important matters. The right wingers I try to keep at a save distance, sadly that now includes an uncle I actually used to like.
Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’d get along well with someone supporting a party who praises Stalin and Mao in their program – not that it’s statistically likely to meet a voter for that list here in Germany.
Conservatives are boring and unimaginative as hell. Why would anyone want to be roommates with them?
Those who complain about “polarization” in politics are like those hypersensitive children in dysfunctional families (which is to say “families”) who at some point in the ABC After-School Special they are living in shriek at their unhappy parents “STOP IT! STOP IT! I HATE IT WHEN YOU FIGHT!!!” To them, it doesn’t matter if mommy is screwing the milkman or that daddy drinks himself into a stupor each night. They’re committed to keeping their family together no matter how miserable it makes everyone else involved. The same with politics. It doesn’t matter if one or more political parties or ideologies are destroying a civilization. To avoid conflict, they’ll tolerate any outrages. They aren’t interested in justice or progress, they just want quiet.
I went to college in the ’70s, and back then, as in all the decades since, it’s been my impression that the main reason conservatives went to college was in hopes of having sex with liberals. I mean, they do kind of want a piece of paper that says they’ve been to college, but that has never seemed like the main thing they were there for.
It is, forever and always, the language of the abuser:
“I can do whatever I like to you, but you cannot complain, decide differently for yourself, disagree, or fight back.”
Personally, if Tories/Republicans/Whoever said they don’t want to fuck me for whatever reason, I’d be fine. There are plenty* of people who DO want to fuck me. I’ll go find them.
Louis
Plenty is a non-zero, positive integer that may be greater than one. I mean, it’s mostly one. But a boy can live in hope.
I imagine hanging out with Republicans is a bit like “What We Do In The Shadows”.
I suspect (and this is a seriously brown* idea) that the reason conservatives are more willing to room with a liberal is:
The conservative ideas are incredibly simple (and (of course) wrong) and easy to use to browbeat opponents, especially since they can usually be summed up in black-and-white catch phrases, while progressive viewpoints require some actual thought. They think they can, because their ideas are more simple, they can easily convince the fuzzy-headed liberal.
Conservatives really do appear to believe to think that the only reason everyone doesn’t agree with them is because they don’t understand conservatism. So they think they can teach the liberal all of the common-sense and simple arguments for conservatism and, through education, convert them.
Conservatives are more than willing to use terrorism (violence, or threats of violence to influence the body politic) and they know that liberals are weak pacifistic losers, so they think that the threat of violence will stop the liberal even attempting to refute the conservative gargage.
This could also work for marriage. For a sick definition of work.
pulled out of me arse.
When you say conservative students I think of wossname Miller, the guy in the Trump White house who, as a student, is on video loudly objecting to students having to pick up their own litter.
Also, the heavy drinker and almost-rapist that got appointed to the supreme court.
If you know other Republucans who went MAGA as students please share the names.
well I think the question is kind of put the wrong way around.
It is not why do Liberals not want to be friends with conservatives rather it should be why do conservatives make it so unappealing. Why are they so selfish judgemental, intolerant and controlling, Why are they so critical of minorities? Because we are talking about mostly white people at least here in the US.
It is conservatives who go out of their way to be uninterested in and unappealing to others, who can not live and let live. So who wants to be friends with someone who is judgemental and critical of everyone else unless they are the same as them?
Quick translation — people who constantly express extremely repugnant ideas as if they are somehow acceptable don’t mind hanging out with much nicer people who don’t share beliefs in their extremely repugnant ideas, but are now upset that the feeling isn’t reciprocal.
I am pretty sure serial killers also enjoy spending time with their victims, but their victims don’t reciprocate that enjoyment much at all.
Let’s just cut to the chase and declare that far-right/alt-right thinking is a great diagnosis tool of people with severe personality disorders.
“Driving the news: 46% said they would probably/definitely not room with someone who supported the opposing presidential candidate in 2020 (62% of Dems, 28% of GOP).
53% said they would probably/definitely not go on a date with someone who supported the other side in 2020.
63% said they would probably/definitely not marry someone who supported the other 2020 candidate.”
After a long day in college classes, dizzy and headachy from the formaldehyde fumes in gross anatomy lab or the organic chem lab acetone fumes, maybe the last thing a Democrat/leftist/liberal/progressive student feels like coming home to is another headache from an argumentative asshat who thinks that science isn’t real and wants to spout talking points plucked from Faux News regardless of whether or not anyone else is interested in listening to this crap.
On the plus side, if you are that STEM student, the question may eventually come down to “methylene blue, syrup of ipecac, or cyanide” because you will have access to all of those options. Peace and sweet, sweet silence at any price.
As for the “would not marry/date” aspect? Color me shocked, shocked that maybe, just maybe, if you are a person who can get pregnant, maybe the last person in the world that you would let put any body part in your vagina is someone who thinks that modern utopia is equal parts The Handmaid’s Tale and The Stepford Wives.
Here’s a primer.
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2018/05/07/reader-request-week-2018-1-incels-and-other-misogynists/
Mind you, the female Republicans/conservatives have already effectively removed themselves from the dating population because they’re too busy reading The Rules and refusing all date offers that come in after Tuesday 4pm. Enjoy that free lifetime supply of unforced-error celibacy and lonely Saturday nights.
That said… not all conservatives/Republicans are the same. Some of them are reachable. Def avoid the neocons though. Those clowns are a lost cause.
The Better Half started out as a moderate conservative when we first met but has changed substantially since we got together. They still consider themselves conservative but they were always Never Trumpers and it is unlikely that other conservatives would consider them conservative at this point.
@18 “Also, the heavy drinker and almost-rapist that got appointed to the supreme court.”
My money is on the probability that Kavanaugh is already a rapist. He’s a blackout drunk who doesn’t listen to “no” or other signs/signals that the other party is definitely not interested. Not a guy whose standard is enthusiastic consent.
Just because he might not (or otherwise pretend not to) remember doesn’t mean he’s not a rapist. I think that the odds are pretty high that he already is. In the unlikely event that he isn’t, there’s still an excellent chance that he will be in the future. Because he likes beer and also likes his entitled blackout drunk self just fine the way he is and sees no reason to change.
And yeah, definitely “What We Do In The Shadows”. Specifically, the energy-draining vampire.
As a trans woman, being vulnerable near a member of the republican party strikes me as a significant risk to my health, either from them directly or from their family.
Alternative title: “1930s Jewish people in Germany not enthusiastic about the idea of dating an active member of the National Socialism party…”
Liz Cheney is a homophobic bigoted authoritarian American exceptionalist asshole who is cut from her father’s cloth and voted with Trump 93%, and still reliably votes with the GOP against choice, voting rights, and every other decent policy. Her one and only one virtue is that she doesn’t support insurrection.
Rapists are cool with raping people who aren’t cool with being raped, so of course the media frames this as the latter being intolerant.
Karl Popper had something to say about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Stephen the fascist Jew, despised by his own family.
There are so many, but Samuel Alito is a prominent example: https://www.salon.com/2006/01/13/alito_controversy/
At least they have a sense of humor, frequently saying “It’s just a joke.” … their cover for misogyny, racism, and generally punching down.
Seems irrelevant.
@30 There’s always the possibility of a slow news day that was filled by an old article which is still kind of relevant. Given PZ’s goof with the Lindsey Graham article, I felt it appropriate to mention it, nevertheless.
Akira MacKenzie @13;
The ones concern trolling over polarization are NOT children in a dysfunctional family. They are the “so reasonable” neighbors scolding/shaming the victim(s) to stay in an abusive relationship.
It is hard to take the republicans seriously in these “reach out to the other side” polls when they are the same group with the position of “the other side needs to adjust to MY position”. When not attacking the other side for existing.
PS. Not a child psychologist or family therapist, but isn’t a child saying “STOP IT! I HATE WHEN YOU FIGHT!” acting normally? I would not consider it hypersensitive at all.
…isn’t a child saying “STOP IT! I HATE WHEN YOU FIGHT!” acting normally?
Not necessarily. Depending on age, it might also be “normal” for a child to either take one parent’s side against the other, or suggest the parents split up if they can’t seem to get along.
I suspect a lot of Trumpists are ok with rooming with liberals because it provides them with an easy target to troll.
Regardless no one is entitled to my friendship and using my freedom of association to avoid Trumpists isn’t intolerant-i don’t throw rocks at them.
Raging Bee;
Thank you.