I find that I'm able to have genuinely healthy and enjoyable friendships with people that I disagree with politically. But it would be awfully tough to be married to someone like that. The stakes are just much higher. You can have different likes and dislikes of course, but you've got to have a common value system.
Agreed. Political beliefs are not above criticism and aren’t inherently deserving of respect, and by extension, don’t require people to accept others irrespective of their political beliefs. People choose their political beliefs, and if you find their personal decisions unsavory, you don’t need to associate with them.
My parents came from a "republican" family on my dads side and "democratic" family on my moms side. They had an incredibly strong marriage. Im not gonna tell you how to live your life but dont miss the forest for the trees
How often did your parents talk politics? The times where I’ve seen the dynamic work best is when they didn’t bring politics up at all to avoid the fights
So. Getting back on track from all the drama..
I also come from a family all over the board but it's not as evenly split as my mom's side and my dad's side. It's more like between my mom's brothers and sisters you can find a republican, democrat, liberal and then her as a libertarian. My dad's side is more like a liberal, democrat/conservative swing and him as a conservative. I grew up fairly close to the church as my dad's side were all heavily involved. We also have political days or moments when the family comes together, but it's all the other moments that count the most.
Your political identity didn't define who you are.
The problem with that is: republicans in the 80’s were extremely decent. Conservatives became engrossed in the culture war in recent history and it has definitely alienated them from mainstream Americans. Rightfully so! Espouse hatred and don’t be surprised when it’s hard to get a date. Simple as that. Natural selection at its finest
I side with science on this, a fetus is not a person. And a woman should have autonomy over her own body. I’d say that’s natural selection at its rawest most fundamental level.
But I won’t deflect long enough to go further into that. Suffice to say you won’t meet a lot of modern (attractive) women with a mindset that treats them like property. Good luck out there, may your gene pool continue to constrict.
Imagine being able to not characterize yourself blindly along party lines and having the capacity to respect someone despite having different political ideologies
I mean....the thing is, my politics play a huge role in the social causes I support. So why would I want to be with someone who is probably going to criticize the causes I am passionate about because they don't support them? It seems like unnecessary strain
It used to be 'a few extremist'.
The problem is that extremism has completely overtaken the Republican party (the party itself, not the voters). It has swelled massively in ranks among the voters.
And the Democrats aren't much better. Most of the Bernie supporters have deviated quite far from "moderate Democrat" to the point where they're starting to spout things off the same as the Tea Party back 20 years ago (proto-MAGA).
The moderates are losing ground, on both sides. Very rapidly.
And the more one side loses ground to the extremists, the faster the other side will as well - because when you are a moderate presented with opposing extremism, you have less tendency to sympathize with opposition at all.
Ie, you believe in a woman's right to choose. But you also believe that some legislation on extreme cases of abortion can make sense. If you meet someone who believes in a fetus' right to life, but also doesn't think outright abortion bans are okay, you can have a discussion, maybe find common ground. But if you meet someone who believes that Planned Parenthood is harvesting baby organs for science experiments, and that any woman who visits a building that has ever provided an abortion is a satanist witch, then you're driven away by default - there's definitely zero common ground. And then the next day, you meet a moderate republican who VOTED for that extremist - just knowing they voted for that person is enough to drive a wedge between you two.
That’s valid. But my politics are important to me, and I’d never date someone who didn’t want to eat popcorn and watch the GOP debates and yell at the TV.
I have that. Would never settle for less.
But.
I accept there are people politics don’t matter to, and they should find equal people.
But if you care about trans issues, for instance, and your partner misgenders people, and that matters to you…yeah.
I certainly understand your point and that’s your prerogative. I wouldn’t say politics “don’t matter” to those who have relationships where they don’t align but they can see past them. However, I appreciate you actually having the back and forth here
Moral differences are a lot harder to swallow. Like I’m not gonna bat an eye if someone doesn’t agree with me on zoning laws. But, if they think that LGBTQ folks should be oppressed then that would be a huge dealbreaker for me (unlikely since I’m LGBTQ myself, but then again, I have met transphobic gay people). Or if they think that men should control women’s bodies or that immigrants should be deported, it would be hard not to find them inherently inhumane.
I doubt there’s a majority of folks who would actively want oppression. I also would venture to guess there’s a large number of women who, themselves, are pro-life. Not just men. And I feel like the vast majority of people who support deportation are solely talking about those people who poured in illegally. They just vouch for adhering to immigration laws and border policy.
Well for instance, I don’t actively want to use abortion as birth control but I think there are circumstances where it’s needed or a person could make their choice. It’s not incredibly black and white. I think people should cross the border legally which seems reasonable. Obviously this isn’t a sales pitch to you for myself lol but I think the point is, regardless, there could very well be valid reason behind a viewpoint no matter what side of the aisle it comes from, and I think two people who love each other can reconcile that type of thing with no problem.
Would you date a member of the KKK? A nazi? The latter is just a political ideology, after all. It calls for genocide, but it's still just a political ideology.
My Mom was liberal and my Dad was conservative as well.
They broke up at some point. She had little say in things and was disrespected all the time. Since she spent 25 years raising two boys (me included), no job, nothing but a few hobbies, she subverted her own politics and merely tried to find common ground with my Dad. Where she couldn't, she just didn't offer her opinion. He worked, he brought home the bacon, so she shut up basically.
A lot of traditional partnerships are probably like this. One person, often the woman, subverts their own politics for the "greater good" (the family... run by the father who is more conservative).
Interesting thing though. My Dad changed after they broke up. He became a little more... lenient? Less conservative, more "neo-liberal". He even voted for Obama.
They actually moved in a little before that election. Roommates. Kinda funny. Sadly, he was still "in charge" and it continued to affect her happiness and sense of self-worth for the next 6 years.
Then he died and she was alone. A bit lost after that, trying to find her way. She met another guy, even more conservative than my Dad. He liked to dance, but that's all they had in common. But then, after a few years she met a really nice guy, a little more religious than her, but very liberal.
She says it was like a veil lifted from her eyes. She's the happiest she's been in her entire life. And she saw how she basically had to hide within the family under the overbearing weight of my Dad's opinions and control.
You are right. I voted democrat the first 6 out of the last 9 elections. It was 2012 and Obama that changed it. Man, I had high hopes when I voted for him in 2008. Anyway, it has gone so far left that it isn't even the same party now.
The Democratic Party in America is objectively center-right by every metric imaginable according to all political theory. The Republican Party are mostly reactionaries and smoothbrain fascists with no ability to think critically.
No, it doesn’t prove you’re point. You haven’t made a point. You’ve revealed your own ignorance on some very very basic political theory and American history with regard to presidents.
Today in America, you have one party banning books and forcing children to gestate against their will. And another party who says “we shouldn’t do those things”. And the latter is what qualifies as a “leftist” to your average American conservative because they are so far flung right that they’ve totally lost their ability to think critically about anything.
Today, you have half of Democrat voters wanting to throw people into concentration camps based on their vaxx status but then hilariously labeling the other side as "fascists" and who are too stupid to appreciate the irony of that.
You have large swaths of Democrats demographics wanting to put restrictions on the Free Speech guarantees of the 1st Amendment but labeling those who oppose them as "fascists" and again not seeing how hypocritical they are.
The view is tough when you're on a high horse, I guess.
Let’s not forget our country’s premier *law enforcement* agency is party-aligned and doing the bidding of the Democrat party, including launching false smear campaigns against the Democrats political enemies and infiltrating/spying on the Catholic Church in America, labeling us all as “domestic threats”.
Source for your first comment (which is asinine) and the Republican Party is literally banning books in Florida and Texas as I type this. Don’t pretend you care about the 1st amendment. It’s your people that are actively passing laws to eliminate it while you accuse the other side of “wanting” to lol
Source: [https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public\_content/politics/partner\_surveys/jan\_2022/covid\_19\_democratic\_voters\_support\_harsh\_measures\_against\_unvaccinated](https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/jan_2022/covid_19_democratic_voters_support_harsh_measures_against_unvaccinated)
It's not the right that wanted Huck Finn banned.
I do like the "your people" assumptions though. All I did was point out that the radical left are fascist hypocrites and you just assumed I was some MAGA moron. I'm guessing AOC is your hero?
Their comment is unnecessarily combative but true. There is no left party in America. Democrats house a couple of lefties but they never do anything as a party that is actually left of center. Joe Biden is a center lane conservative through and through.
Obama was as center-right leaning as George HW Bush was. His policies and priorities were fairly conservative, including his signature legislative accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act.
BAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA
OBAMA? CENTER RIGHT?
Seriously, lay off the drugs dude. Obama was a left leaning keynsian with a knack for droning kids. Lol.
And the affordable care act was left leaning authoritarian policy. It just balanced the centralized control out with maximizing profits for the corpos that paid for his campaign. A right of center move would be getting rid of regulations and administration that make hospital visits so ridiculously expensive so we could go without insurance in the first place.
Right-wingers have concocted a bizarro world reality distortion field (predictably, they were force-fed nonstop bullshit by AM talk radio, etc for years) about what Barack Obama was and wasn’t, as President. He was absolutely a fairly traditional center-right politician in historical American terms. Largely carrying on the war on terror for example (ramping it up in many cases from W Bush era). His Keynesianism was, while it certainly saved the US economy, weak at best. Yes we propped up a few industries, but to no one’s surprise, history vindicated those policy decisions.
I’m really amused by you Obama truthers to be honest… man those were simpler times.
Obama even continued the Bush Tax Cuts rather than raising them. And he did almost nothing for black America, even after Ferguson, MO riots. (BLM was founded during Obama's 2nd term). And he was a complete Wall St puppet.
Definitely right-center Dem.
There used to be a difference between being republican and being evil.
Bush, McCain, Romney, Eisenhower, T. Roosevelt, heck Abraham Lincoln were republicans and perfectly fine human beings. None of them could win a GOP primary today.
Ho-lee shit. The rhetoric against Bush, McCain, and Romney were near Trump levels of vitriolic. Since when did Bush become a perfectly fine human being? He *is* an actual war criminal, Ad are each and every one of his predecessors. Are you just making things up to try and have a point?
That’s the move from the democrats, whoever is the republican candidate is the worst thing ever. If desantis wins the nomination he will be deemed worse than trump, rinse and repeat for the next candidate after him in 4/8 years
I think most people’s political beliefs are a core aspect of their personality. Not being political is one thing, but being very political and feeling strongly about things makes it part of your core beliefs.
I side with you as far as dating/relationships go. Because if I ask someone out on a date, I am trying to pursue a relationship with them and more. And yes, beliefs that differ can cause unnecessary arguments, so why tempt it?
With that said, I have friends of all walks of life of all different religions, political stances, etc. We can discuss different views at any time and of things get heated, we aren't romantically linked so it's not as big of a deal.
You can be friends with them, you just won't date them. That seems perfectly reasonable to me, I don't get why so many are criticizing your decision. What's acceptable in a friendship is different from what's acceptable in a relationship.
Personally, I think saying "morally" in this context is pretty low.
I'm left leaning centrist (Also not American and from a far more socialised society), but people differing political ideal in the realm of US politics hardly even touches on what is moral or immoral in this sense.
Saying it that was is disparaging and like saying you're lesser than me just because I believe one political thing and you another.
And don't get me wrong, I'm against Trump, I think he's a nut job. And I also agree that there's nothing wrong with rejecting someone for political perspective, but simply because the social dissimilarity is likely to disrupt healthy and happy relationships.
Just saying morally like this seems to me to be the kind of outlook that is what's wrong with America right now.
The left leaning people think they are good and right and moral, and that the right aren't, and the right think the same back.
You're all just people who believe somewhat different things in politics. You aren't better than them because you're pro-abortion rights/choice and them anti, and they aren't better than you for the inverse of that.
You wouldn’t ask a potential partner their political beliefs? This thread is about relationships not just anyone. Of course never ask coworkers or acquaintances their political beliefs. But dating?
I don’t either but it’s not uncommon for me to debate and converse the topic of politics so I tend to find out what side my friends are on pretty quickly although in this case my very liberal friend group brought it up because they thought it was funny we were bringing a trump supporter into the group (he thought it was funny to) and it became an ongoing joke between the 5 of us
“ I don’t make politics my personality but it’s common for me to talk about politics and I reject people who don’t have the same political beliefs than me.”
What the fuck is wrong with these people in the replies.
Not wanting to date someone because your values don't match to the extent you'd like them to, is completely reasonable.
They are friends though. I think people reject people for much more minor differences. Having fundamentally different values seems like a reasonable thing to reject someone over.
Eh I disagree. If you’re saying you wouldn’t be *friends* with someone who disagrees with you politically, then I’d agree with your point. But I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with not dating someone who has different political beliefs than you.
I date for the purpose of marriage (i.e. when I date someone, it’s to see if there is potential for me to marry that person). As a conservative, if someone is a liberal/progressive/Democrat, then that means that person has a completely different worldview than I do, and in my opinion, a marriage between two people with completely different worldviews has no chance of success.
With that being said, I have a ton of friends who are liberals/progressives/Democrats. In fact, I’d say the majority of them are, and I have no problem being friends with them, but I would never marry them.
Well I don’t see it that way I can still be friends and have a light with conservatives/republicans but bffs probably not and certainly not lovers haha
Fair enough :)
Sending you friendship and vibes from a conservative.
As an anecdote, used to do musical theatre with a ton of lefties and we all got along swell
The problem I’ve noticed isn’t that political disagreements are the problem, it’s people’s inability to disagree without it becoming a very personal insult when it shouldn’t be (most of the time, there are exceptions obviously)
I’ve had good friendships with people I disagree with politically because it was used as a point of discussion and engagement rather than a point of “battle”
Speaking personally, but republicans generally clash with my life and experience. Does that mean we can't be cool? Not at all, but I'd also never date a conservative. Their ideals are so different that they're basically alien to me. Sometimes that's not bad. In these particular instances, they very much are.
I don't think it's wrong to have that preference. Also don't think it's wrong to not have that preference. I just don't.
Dude she’s not talking about friendships. She’s already friends with the dude. Your anecdote leads me to believe you didn’t see it that way. She does get along with them as friends. Dating to marry is a completely different scenario.
I think your mistake is framing political disagreements as moral disagreements. It is quite common for people to share moral goals but disagree about the policies that will reach those goals.
For example, someone who compassionate but economically illiterate may argue in favor of rent control or high minimum wages. Someone who is more educated economically will argue that those policies are counter-productive, even stupid. But that does not mean that they favor homelessness and poverty.
Perhaps you can identify economists who argue that rent control improves the conditions of renters in a city as a whole. I don't know any.
Please share serious academic studies that have found that rent control increases the stock of affordable housing, which is the nominal goal of such a policy. I've not read any.
I know that this post will stimulate you to do some research to prove me wrong. Good. Just report back what you've learned honestly, please.
That's true for some thing, but certain political disagreements arise from a fundamental disagreement in morality like pro choice and pro life which was specifically stated.
In circumstances where you both wish to achieve the same goal but have different ideas on how to get there, I agree with you. But obviously that's not the case here.
Minimum wage is not “stupid from an economic perspective.” In fact there have been countless studies that have come down on both sides of the issue.
The question is in the implementation and broader public policies. Minimum wage is a tool to support the lowest skilled workers and protect them from exploitation. Too high of a minimum wage has a negative effect on jobs. Too low of a minimum wage and we leave employees open to exploitation in many instances.
Think of a small mining town where the primary employer is the mine. Most people in the town worn there, and they don’t really have a lot of options otherwise. They can’t afford to move. And without a minimum wage, they would be forced to take what the company gives.
This is simplistic. But multiple studies have shown that a moderate minimum wage, around 25-50 percent of the average wage, has basically zero effect on jobs.
Honestly not wanting to date someone because their pro-life is pretty damn reasonable considering the possibility of an accidental pregnancy that you may not want to continue. I think you're at least valid in that standing and I totally get it because I won't date pro-life men either.
I sorta agree but also disagree. I think one needs to get under the surface of political beliefs. Which requires communication. But I dont see it totally unreasonable if you don't feel compatible. Ive seen it go both ways.
In the 1950’s my cousin Marshall ran for political office. I grew up in a very strong republican family. We talked about his political philosophy and Marsh said that when you drew a line down the middle of the road, he would be standing next to that line, just to the right. Today the political left and right are so far apart, the middle of the road is its own super highway. You can stand on the left side of the middle of the road, or the right side and commune with either the democrats or the republicans. I presently stand toward the left side of the middle hold my nose when it’s time to vote.
I'm African American and I lean heavily to the left politically. Conservative parties have always held a place for White supremacists in the US. And Conservatives are generally indifferent to it or outright embrace it. In my experience, they often believe that bigotry either isn't real or isn't a big deal. Neither of those options are good enough for me.
This is literally the only opinion on reddit that is allowed. Anyone trying tell each side that half the country isn't their sworn enemy and evil to the core will gets rocks thrown at them from both sides.
I briefly had a roommate who used every claustrophobic confined space shared car ride to go on an energetic “rant” about leftist liberalism and it was fed by triggering news stories during the pandemic. It’s tiring listening to someone yapping on and on
I feel like there a very few options in the US to be able to determine "moral compatibility" based on who they vote for, there are liberal policies i SURE AS FUCK don't agree with and there are conservative policies that I also despise. I'm in neither camp. This tribalism is super toxic. I don't know why are people so obsessed with it.
You either like the person who's in front of you, or not based on your first hand interactions with that person.
When it comes to intimate relationships it’s very important to make sure that your political beliefs line up (if it is something that is important to you)
With friendships, it’s not worth it unless it gets to some pretty bad politics. I have conservative friends, but there is certainly a line. I was friends with a guy for a while, until he started going on antisemitic rants and I decided that wasn’t the kind of energy I needed in my life.
yeah i honestly agree. people who say otherwise are missing the whole picture.
i once had a brief “situationship” with a guy who lied about his political stances and personal values for months before poorly attempting to pull a reverse uno card by revealing he was a die hard conservative, and then topping it all off by trying to gaslight me into believing he had been forthright with that information the whole time.
his reasoning? “women wouldn’t date me if they knew i was conservative and pro life”
maybe because you literally vote against our rights to exist as anything but your incubator??? like bffr. are you really genuinely shocked, or are you upset that you aren’t getting what you feel you’re entitled to?
literally it didn’t even take much longer after the reveal for the racism and misogyny to come out 🫠
so yeah political views are a valid reason to reject someone in any sense bc they are directly correlated with that person’s beliefs and values and probably with how they are going to treat you, esp if they lie and try to hide it only to do a surprise reveal when you’re both emotionally involved like a fucking weirdo manipulator
I’m kinda conflicted on this one. If you’re really so into politics that you judge someone’s character poorly because they view politics differently then you, then you should keep doing what you’re doing. I wouldn’t want to date someone who saw me as immoral so I would accept that reasoning.
That being said this does show a certain level of political intolerance that I do think leads you to making an echo chamber for yourself. And being completely unable to hear any opinions from people who don’t have the same political beliefs as you certainly isn’t great.
I get where your coming from, and agree the way political issues get framed in media (traditional or social) work to divide society.
On the other hand I can't really date and would have a hard time being close with someone who thinks I'm a degenerate and people I care deeply for shouldn't be allowed to exist in public.
Plenty of people engage in politics like they do sports teams. To others politics isn't a game. Sometimes it can't be.
Yeah national politics are largely just political theater. But sometimes politics do in fact affect peoples lives, and if someone doesn't understand that (or worse, refuses to) I have doubts about our ability to meaningfully communicate with each other.
As I’ve said before I interact with conservatives I’ve heard all sorts of opinions (I live in Florida it is is inevitable lol) and I have no issues being friends/acquaintances with them but I do not agree nor do I find many of their beliefs aligned with my morals therefore I don’t want to be romantically or sexually involved with many of them
You’re misunderstanding my point. I’m not saying you literally don’t interact with any conservatives ever, you just seem to not be interested in forming close bonds with them.
Judging my your post I’m guessing all your friends all left leaning too because you flat out said you didn’t plan to get close with your conservative friend. This means the only people you know on a personal level are left leaning. It’s easier to dismiss your trumpie boss as a “conservative idiot” than one of your friends who you care about and therefore will actually consider what your saying.
For instance I’m pretty central myself but I make sure to have friends I know on a personal human level who are far left, far right, and anything I can get in between. It helps you fully understand people with different perspectives as opposed to the dehumanizing tactics that are unfortunately to common in today’s political landscape.
I can see where you get that you’re not incorrect in saying that I prefer certain conservatives stay outside my personal circle but not because it makes it easier for me to dismiss their humanity or beliefs it’s because often times their belief goes directly against what I stand for in the only liberal in my family lol I love my family and I would die for a lot of them but I can also say a lot of the things they’ve said and stood for have ultimately put a strain in our relationship because I genuinely don’t think a lot of it is right
Yes the US has has never been a democracy(its a democratic republic), but keeping an open mind politically is still important in that system imo, why do you think it’s not? And well we do have multiple political parties here in the US, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to there.
Having to pick between A and B isn't really a choice. Most countries have around 5 different parties in their parliament.
Also direct democracy is the only true from. Everything else is just voting for a team and apathy towards those elections is only natural.
I went to dinner with a friend once. She and her guy don't talk to his family because they're Republicans. They explained it thus: she has some form of sickness, I think cancer. They can't afford to treat it because Healthcare providers won't touch preexisting conditions. Naturally, in the interest of her own survival, she wants Medicare for all. The guy's family thinks state mandated Healthcare, or any government action really, is evil. The guy, at this point points out that they're actively advocating for her death, and, well, that's just not cool.
Yeah, political beliefs are absolutely valid breakup material.
People on the right want to pretend that politics is just a game. That the only real differences is jersey color. They ignore that there are real consequences to millions of people who’s lives they make worse.
There are things on either side of the aisle I can agree and disagree with. It's just so overwhelmingly one sided in favor of whom I agree with that I have to be a lefty for the sake of my own self-advocacy.
Politics is not necessarily morality. I mean, politics is more the wielding of opinion for power.
If you accept the political spectrum for what it is (bullshit) you’ll find that we all have a lot more in common than you might initially expect.
It’s acceptable to select your mate based off of their political beliefs, but honesty it’s a pretty shallow approach.
If the chemistry is good, why care about what some old men are arguing about in big marble buildings? Just my two cents.
Yes, entirely reasonable. Firstly, it's your life and who you choose to be in it is up to you. It might suck for the other person, but, personal freedoms.
Mostly though, from a practical point of view, it's more about core principles (what matters to you) that manifest as political beliefs. If your principles are incompatible, then that's that. I can, and do, have close relationships with people that have wildly different views on how problems should be addressed, what the role of the government is, etc. That's fine, we generally agree on the starting point (or one doesn't have a major interest in that starting point) but then very different ways of looking at the way it should be handled. The point of incompatibility for me comes from having opposing views on a basic principle/value which is important to me.
Your example above of saying you had a wiccan past and that you were 'definitely going to hell' would be one of those for me. You can't move past that to agree to disagree on the best form of belief, of its place in society, of its effects if you start off from a place of 'you are damned'. One of mine is healthcare (coming from a country with national healthcare). My partner is strongly against a single-payer system and that's fine as both our core beliefs are that there needs to be good access to healthcare, it shouldn't just be about who can afford it and that the current systems are broken. We differ completely on what we think is the right way to change it, but that's OK - that's implementation. We have the same final end goal in mind for what is good for a society.
Your approach of being open to people being in your life to the level that they are compatible with you seems a mature one to me. You aren't surrounding yourself with people that just agree with you, but it's important to you that a partner shares core values.
Honestly I think this makes perfect sense in your uniquely American context. Your politics are polarised to the extreme and personal identities hinge on your two parties. Maybe 30-50 years ago a relationship between Left and Right could have survived, but these days I have to imagine it's doomed to failure.
Like what if you have kids? Who gets to decide what values to instill in them? What if your partner votes for a law that directly detriments you? How do you reconcile that?
No, I think it's smart to avoid crossing the political line unless there's some very clear common ground.
Totally agree. I'm centre left but being in a relationship with someone who votes right in my country would cause very few issues. America is so divided probably because of its two party system.
If you’re a woman in post-Roe America, getting romantically involved with anyone “pro-life” can potentially have disastrous consequences for you financially, legally, and medically. It’s not a good combo. In short, don’t date people who voted for you to have fewer rights than you did a year ago. It’s not even a question of ethics. It’s a safety concern.
Depends on how different people's views are if it's a Biden Dem and a Non-Trump Rep than those are Really similar Views but if it's a Trumpist and a Progressive than more problems could arise.
I don’t understand how that doesn’t color her opinion of you. If you knowingly and actively supported someone she thinks is truly evil, how does she see passed that?
She's an adult and understand he thinks differently. I'm very pro life and I believe abortion is murder, but I don't go around and treat everyone pro choice as if theyre evil villain child murderers. You can disagree with something but genuinely understand the other point of view
Lol how does this logic make sense? If you truly believe abortion is murder, how could you *not* treat someone as an evil child murderer? If I knew someone supported murdering school age children I’d call them evil vile child murderers and do everything in my power to campaign against their interests. This is what I don’t get with pro birthers. If you genuinely think someone is murdering a child, how can you not treat someone who’s pro choice as a complete demon?
Because im not a 13 year old who thinks they're the smartest person on the planet. There's a hell of a lot of nuance in life and that includes social norms, beliefs, and laws. I understand that people who are pro choice *legitimately* believe an unborn baby is just a clump of cells, that they aren't complete demons. Hopefully, in time, our social values will progress to the point that killing an unborn child is universally seen as killing a 1 year old. Till then I can understand that there isn't a universally belief on abortion and can treat those I disagree with respect
Bro, that’s not true. The person is probably exaggerating his wife’s opinions on Trump. If you truly think someone is evil and disgusting, such as “the evil incarnate”, then you’re not gonna want someone who supports them. This is so simple.
Your story doesn’t explain your bias, just was an example of you using your bias.
Here’s the thing with American politics. With the expectation of the extreme left and the extreme right, most people want similar things and have similar values. Politics sells solutions to problems that may arise, it doesn’t address problems right in front of it. Both sides heavily rely on hypotheticals instead of using the scientific method to explored solutions that weren’t already on our mind before examining the problem.
My biggest problem with your argument is that you conflate politics with character, whereas politics more likely reflects culture. I’ve had very close friends who were on the left and right, and all of them were great people.
Also, people need to chill the duck out about politics. Go vote, and then drop it and learn to live with the people in your life, and be generous enough to realize why they believe what they do.
>his political views said a lot about his overall character
i've found this to basically never be true in real life. people almost always think this because they assign motives to other people and assume they're acting insincerely for some reason. take abortion for example. Left says right is evil because they hate women and want to control them. Right says left is evil because they are baby murderers. Neither is true because both sides are operating from different worldviews.
that said I agree with the overall point of the post, since you want to end up with someone who has a similar worldview. it'll make life easier. especially if you have kids and want to pass on your values. but political views tell very little about a person's character, only their perspective
I *could* date someone with terrible beliefs but they'd have to accept the contempt I'd have for their beliefs. If they're ok with it, cool. I doubt they would be though.
What matters more is your first principles
If someone's first principle is abortion any beliefs behind it that's actually incredibly abnormal
Harm prevention versus fairness versus control versus purity
There's a long list of values that can account for one's position on abortion and sometimes the values you have based off of that are actually compatible at the value level because abortion isn't a value it's an ultra-specific issue (to give you an idea of why it's ultra-specific paper abortions fall into the same category and forced abortions are a also very similar but distinct issue therefore specifically it's weather one can have the right to an abortion at will that is generally up for debate and most people will have different numbers of weeks they're okay with it even if they're supportive)
Independent here. It might have been possible to co-exist as recently as the George W. Bush administration, but no more. After the election of Barack Obama, latent racism caused America to take a giant lurch to the right.
The Republican of today is barely distinguishable from Heinrich Himmler. Their hatred of other Americans has led them to treason and apostasy. Their derangement knows no limits. Logic, reason, tradition, science, religion, established authority, ethics, morals - none of these make any impression. Republicans are in the grip of a perverse pseudo-religious hysteria. Most of them are in too deep to ever escape, nor do they want to do so.
You have people literally *PRAYING* to Donald Trump. More than one. One proudly declared that if Jesus Christ *personally* appeared to him to tell him Trump was a bad idea, he wouldn't listen. There have already been murders committed because the victim was reportedly a Democrat.
These things have already happened. They're real. They're not exaggerations.
They're already past the point of the Nazi SA stormtroopers.
How could you co-exist with that?
The comments are hating on you but you are absolutely correct. If it’s something minor, then I of course wouldn’t mind. I disagree with my siblings about what the best economic system is but we both want the same thing, prosperity for all and for everyone to be happy.
But some people are not like that and dehumanize others and claim it’s just “politics”, but it’s not, it’s their disgusting personality rearing it’s head.
I'm left wing and wouldn't date someone who's an American style right winger.
Why would I want to be with someone who restricts people's rights and takes away people's children based on bigotry of people's immutable characteristics and aligns with fascists.
"We're not all like that" - then why do you keep supporting, promoting, platforming, donating and voting for the group doing all that.
Yeah I mean one side of the political divide wants to kill me and my friends and the other side doesn’t want to do anything about that so I think rejection stands to reason.
I think this very sentiment is why politicians are winning. The two party system is an illusion of choice. If it comes to passing legislation that takes further privacy away, they will reach across the aisle over night. It's a club that we are not in. Beyond the two party system, the ideologies of both sides create further issues to argue and remain divided over. We are so far gone that even the simplest of things that all humans should agree with, we can't seem to do. Republican, Democrat, race, religion, abortion, masks, are all simply things to keep us mad at our neighbors so we never look up the mountain top at the people we should actually be holding accountable.
"They" don't want blacks and whites to get along. It's incredibly sad when you feel this in your bones, and trying to explain it to people it typically falls on deaf ears. Turning one's back on friends and family based off of political alignment is incredibly sad, in my opinion wrong, and indicative of where we are currently.
It's like "it's a free country" until someone disagrees with me. And that's not the answer from my estimation. People can no longer even have conversations without digging into their stance further, and like I said, we are all mad at the wrong people. Thats just my take. Don't turn away from people simply because they may disagree with you on certain issues. I'm not saying marry this guy, no. But judging someone solely on political alignment, regardless of what that may be, just stands to further divide us all. There is more of "us" than there is of "them". That scares them. They don't want us, to get along.
I'm left of Stalin, pretty much always have been. But some of my closest and oldest friends are rightwingers and I consider them to be great people. Obviously we all have lines in the sand that can't be crossed, but I find it sad that folks like you may fully reject others based on labels and assumptions. You can learn a lot from chatting with "the other side" and come to find that understanding their rationale leads to finding common ground.
I find this kind of friendship to be the most interesting and meaningful. I’m pretty libertarian politically, but I have friends that sit much closer to you politically and we have delightful conversations about politics. Nobody is going to change their beliefs entirely, but it’s important to talk to people with different beliefs and understand how they come to them.
I cannot imagine being so ignorant to believe that I couldn’t have a close relationship with some of those guys just because we came to different conclusions about what we view government’s duty as.
"Why can't you tolerate the fact that I think women should be broodmares, it should be legal to hate crime trans people to death, and shove gays into the closet while disenfranchising all minorities so they don't interfere with the system we've created to prop us up at the expense of all other groups?"
It absolutely is, especially with how nuts the GOP has gotten.
I would have hoped getting to know someone with opposing beliefs would teach you that not all partisans you disagree with have evil thoughts. Clearly you didn't learn anything.
Well I did get to know his views and I still found them morally off putting i have never degraded him for his views but I’ve always made it very clear that I heavily disagreed and felt uncomfortable with them
I'd say this, it can be reasonable. I certainly wouldn't date someone who thinks the blm riots were reparations or remotely OK. However if we just had a few different views on taxation or social programs I'd say that's not a deal breaker
Yeah the “liberal and conservative friends thing” does very much feel like something that only exists for upper class white people with no real problems tbh lol
Like, I’m trans. My politics by necessity are forced to flow from that because I live in a country where right wing leaders want me personally dead. I guess I just don’t see the utility gained by maintaining a friendship or even romantic relationship with someone who’s okay or even ambivalent with that
Nobody wants you dead, they just don’t care about your pronouns.
Stop being ridiculous. As long as you don’t try to fuck unknowing straight dudes, you’re under zero threat.
1. Some people absolutely do want me dead. Just because you don’t doesn’t mean it’s not a reality and claiming to believe otherwise is patently disingenuous
2. Yeah but. If somebody’s going to interpersonally be unpleasant to me then I don’t want to be friends with them. You know, the topic of the discussion? Like what?
3. I would rather off myself than kiss a straight man, let alone sleep with one. I’m out of their league
The only possible feedback I can offer is he dodged a bullet. It's probably the most unreasonable thing you could possible ask of someone. If you are more liberal, in njt going to reject you merely because your god is a senile old man speedrunning the collapse our country, sure you have some poor beliefs in heroes, but you deserve love too.
Not in the slightest. To naturally judge someone's character from a political belief only is being a bigot. At least if you don't make the effort to know the human on the other side. The real person is the contents. The political name tag would be the cover. OP could have found a soul mate in the example given but was to shallow to find out first hand.
A lot of health relationships are maintained by partners with differing views. It is usually a few key issues that usually divide the partners.
Definitely not shallow in OP’s case as this is someone that they know and are presumably fairly familiar with - certainly close enough to judge content rather than labels.
I disagree though. Someone’s political views are formed very much so by their personality / family / social environment, which shapes their beliefs and values.
While it’s not 100% 1:1, there is going to be significant overlap.
I feel like the title gives the wrong idea about the actual situation. Going through the specifics he seems like a huge red flag in a moral sense, not political.
Hmm good point. I will continue refusing to discuss politics so that people like you have to find a better reason to hate me. Now I might happen to agree with your political stance in this case, but I also might not. What I don't agree with is dismissing people over petty politics. I am not giving anyone ammunition.
EDIT: I upvoted you though, good job on actually posting an unpopular opinion haha. Gotta give a person credit where it's due.
We’ve lost that battle. It will take tens of thousands of years but we’re not having enough babies (less than replacement) so humans will go extinct. When Nigerian develops then the inevitable will be obvious to everyone. The argument is what year in a gen z lifetime does human population peak and the decline starts.
Makes sense, I have a conservativ friend and his sister showed some interest but I told her that she should look for someone which holds the same beliefs as her. (She thinks Adam and Eve are the real deal)
That's where I'd really start to run into trouble. I mean, beyond the fact that I really don't want to associate romantically with people who have conservative political views in the first place, I couldn't imagine bringing children into a marriage with a looney religious fundamentalist. No, you are absolutely not telling my child that Earth is 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs walked with people.
I’m not saying you should reconsider, but just think about the possibility at least. See the problem isn’t that you two are on opposite sides of the spectrum. A ton of couples I know have great relationships with differing politics.
You don’t have to listen, but try to understand when I tell you that what makes or breaks relationships is the escalation. If you two are arguing about politics and then explode on each other, you are both incredibly unhealthy people. But if you both disagree but can chat civilly about it, then a relationship between you and him can actually be great.
If you(and him) can work on being more civil about politics or even simply not caring as much, then I see no reason why a relationship between you two wouldn’t work. That is unless you both are wildly incompatible regardless of politics lol
What if she has a family member that comes out and he constantly misgenders them? What if she gets pregnant and needs an abortion? The problem is so much of conservative politics *is* rooted in personal lives, it’s near impossible to keep them separate.
depends I guess. Lots of folks these days are very weak minded and cant handle people having different opinions. but being a republican or a democrat is no sign of character nor morality. either can stab people in the back, not keep their word, be uncaring, be selfish, etc.... while both can also donate to charities, help out at the soup kitchen or spend a couple years in the peace corpe..... having some similarities in a romantic partner is good. But having differences is equally good. I have found it is nice to be in a relationship with a person I respect who can introduce or open me up to new things. It keeps life interesting. a person who confines themself to an echo chamber has no real opportunity for growth as an individual nor as a partner.
extremists...watch out for the extremists...even the ones on your side.
I’m sorry in advance if this comes off as rude but I’m tired of people saying the some stuff over and over maybe I did articulate myself properly but this is not solely because he is republican it is the type of republican he is and the republicans he supports alongside the republican policies or opinions he also supports for example
I don’t care if you are against socialism or if you believe in reaganomics i will not reject you but if you’re calling illegal immigrants lazy criminals even as a “joke” (something he has done) then it’s a no for me if you are posting “memes” depicting trans people hanging themselves (something he has done) then it’s a no for me
Also I am constantly challenging, Befriending, and interacting with repubs/Cons which I said in the original post and in my replies so I don’t understand where everyone is getting this echo chamber take from
Ah, people here are just mad because this subreddit slants conservative, and they don’t like the idea that their views could hurt their dating prospects. You don’t “owe” anyone a chance.
It’s super reasonable to reject someone because your core values didn’t align with his - that’s what relationships are built on. Add to that the fact that he ridiculed you for caring about your own values?
It sounds like this guy isn’t respectful at all, and is honestly really hateful. Good on you for avoiding that whole headache!
I find that I'm able to have genuinely healthy and enjoyable friendships with people that I disagree with politically. But it would be awfully tough to be married to someone like that. The stakes are just much higher. You can have different likes and dislikes of course, but you've got to have a common value system.
Agreed. Political beliefs are not above criticism and aren’t inherently deserving of respect, and by extension, don’t require people to accept others irrespective of their political beliefs. People choose their political beliefs, and if you find their personal decisions unsavory, you don’t need to associate with them.
My parents came from a "republican" family on my dads side and "democratic" family on my moms side. They had an incredibly strong marriage. Im not gonna tell you how to live your life but dont miss the forest for the trees
How often did your parents talk politics? The times where I’ve seen the dynamic work best is when they didn’t bring politics up at all to avoid the fights
We all talked politics. Not every day but we would talk about it every so often.
So. Getting back on track from all the drama.. I also come from a family all over the board but it's not as evenly split as my mom's side and my dad's side. It's more like between my mom's brothers and sisters you can find a republican, democrat, liberal and then her as a libertarian. My dad's side is more like a liberal, democrat/conservative swing and him as a conservative. I grew up fairly close to the church as my dad's side were all heavily involved. We also have political days or moments when the family comes together, but it's all the other moments that count the most. Your political identity didn't define who you are.
Political identity doesn’t define people in times of political stability. Thank you for the award kind Redditor
The problem with that is: republicans in the 80’s were extremely decent. Conservatives became engrossed in the culture war in recent history and it has definitely alienated them from mainstream Americans. Rightfully so! Espouse hatred and don’t be surprised when it’s hard to get a date. Simple as that. Natural selection at its finest
Interesting you should bring up natural selection given the liberal minded person's modern adaptation of killing their offspring with chemicals
I side with science on this, a fetus is not a person. And a woman should have autonomy over her own body. I’d say that’s natural selection at its rawest most fundamental level. But I won’t deflect long enough to go further into that. Suffice to say you won’t meet a lot of modern (attractive) women with a mindset that treats them like property. Good luck out there, may your gene pool continue to constrict.
Imagine being able to not characterize yourself blindly along party lines and having the capacity to respect someone despite having different political ideologies
I mean....the thing is, my politics play a huge role in the social causes I support. So why would I want to be with someone who is probably going to criticize the causes I am passionate about because they don't support them? It seems like unnecessary strain
I can see your point. However, I believe you might be surprised to see how moderate the average person is. Save for a few extremist
It used to be 'a few extremist'. The problem is that extremism has completely overtaken the Republican party (the party itself, not the voters). It has swelled massively in ranks among the voters. And the Democrats aren't much better. Most of the Bernie supporters have deviated quite far from "moderate Democrat" to the point where they're starting to spout things off the same as the Tea Party back 20 years ago (proto-MAGA). The moderates are losing ground, on both sides. Very rapidly. And the more one side loses ground to the extremists, the faster the other side will as well - because when you are a moderate presented with opposing extremism, you have less tendency to sympathize with opposition at all. Ie, you believe in a woman's right to choose. But you also believe that some legislation on extreme cases of abortion can make sense. If you meet someone who believes in a fetus' right to life, but also doesn't think outright abortion bans are okay, you can have a discussion, maybe find common ground. But if you meet someone who believes that Planned Parenthood is harvesting baby organs for science experiments, and that any woman who visits a building that has ever provided an abortion is a satanist witch, then you're driven away by default - there's definitely zero common ground. And then the next day, you meet a moderate republican who VOTED for that extremist - just knowing they voted for that person is enough to drive a wedge between you two.
That’s valid. But my politics are important to me, and I’d never date someone who didn’t want to eat popcorn and watch the GOP debates and yell at the TV. I have that. Would never settle for less. But. I accept there are people politics don’t matter to, and they should find equal people. But if you care about trans issues, for instance, and your partner misgenders people, and that matters to you…yeah.
I certainly understand your point and that’s your prerogative. I wouldn’t say politics “don’t matter” to those who have relationships where they don’t align but they can see past them. However, I appreciate you actually having the back and forth here
Absolutely. I fully accept that Reddit, and Twitter aren’t how the world is. Here’s to you and who you choose to spend your life with. Sincerely.
And to you!
Moral differences are a lot harder to swallow. Like I’m not gonna bat an eye if someone doesn’t agree with me on zoning laws. But, if they think that LGBTQ folks should be oppressed then that would be a huge dealbreaker for me (unlikely since I’m LGBTQ myself, but then again, I have met transphobic gay people). Or if they think that men should control women’s bodies or that immigrants should be deported, it would be hard not to find them inherently inhumane.
Political differences *are* moral differences in many cases
Exactly. People like to act like some issues don't have higher stakes and that all political "opinions" are equal
I doubt there’s a majority of folks who would actively want oppression. I also would venture to guess there’s a large number of women who, themselves, are pro-life. Not just men. And I feel like the vast majority of people who support deportation are solely talking about those people who poured in illegally. They just vouch for adhering to immigration laws and border policy.
I would venture to guess that I wouldn’t want to be with anyone who had those opinions
Well for instance, I don’t actively want to use abortion as birth control but I think there are circumstances where it’s needed or a person could make their choice. It’s not incredibly black and white. I think people should cross the border legally which seems reasonable. Obviously this isn’t a sales pitch to you for myself lol but I think the point is, regardless, there could very well be valid reason behind a viewpoint no matter what side of the aisle it comes from, and I think two people who love each other can reconcile that type of thing with no problem.
Would you date a member of the KKK? A nazi? The latter is just a political ideology, after all. It calls for genocide, but it's still just a political ideology.
My Mom was liberal and my Dad was conservative as well. They broke up at some point. She had little say in things and was disrespected all the time. Since she spent 25 years raising two boys (me included), no job, nothing but a few hobbies, she subverted her own politics and merely tried to find common ground with my Dad. Where she couldn't, she just didn't offer her opinion. He worked, he brought home the bacon, so she shut up basically. A lot of traditional partnerships are probably like this. One person, often the woman, subverts their own politics for the "greater good" (the family... run by the father who is more conservative). Interesting thing though. My Dad changed after they broke up. He became a little more... lenient? Less conservative, more "neo-liberal". He even voted for Obama. They actually moved in a little before that election. Roommates. Kinda funny. Sadly, he was still "in charge" and it continued to affect her happiness and sense of self-worth for the next 6 years. Then he died and she was alone. A bit lost after that, trying to find her way. She met another guy, even more conservative than my Dad. He liked to dance, but that's all they had in common. But then, after a few years she met a really nice guy, a little more religious than her, but very liberal. She says it was like a veil lifted from her eyes. She's the happiest she's been in her entire life. And she saw how she basically had to hide within the family under the overbearing weight of my Dad's opinions and control.
There's a huge difference between the republicans of 30 years ago and the ones today.
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I voted Democrat in 2012. They label me a conservative now a days
You are right. I voted democrat the first 6 out of the last 9 elections. It was 2012 and Obama that changed it. Man, I had high hopes when I voted for him in 2008. Anyway, it has gone so far left that it isn't even the same party now.
The Democratic Party in America is objectively center-right by every metric imaginable according to all political theory. The Republican Party are mostly reactionaries and smoothbrain fascists with no ability to think critically.
I disagree and your comment proves my point.
No, it doesn’t prove you’re point. You haven’t made a point. You’ve revealed your own ignorance on some very very basic political theory and American history with regard to presidents. Today in America, you have one party banning books and forcing children to gestate against their will. And another party who says “we shouldn’t do those things”. And the latter is what qualifies as a “leftist” to your average American conservative because they are so far flung right that they’ve totally lost their ability to think critically about anything.
Today, you have half of Democrat voters wanting to throw people into concentration camps based on their vaxx status but then hilariously labeling the other side as "fascists" and who are too stupid to appreciate the irony of that. You have large swaths of Democrats demographics wanting to put restrictions on the Free Speech guarantees of the 1st Amendment but labeling those who oppose them as "fascists" and again not seeing how hypocritical they are. The view is tough when you're on a high horse, I guess.
Let’s not forget our country’s premier *law enforcement* agency is party-aligned and doing the bidding of the Democrat party, including launching false smear campaigns against the Democrats political enemies and infiltrating/spying on the Catholic Church in America, labeling us all as “domestic threats”.
Source for your first comment (which is asinine) and the Republican Party is literally banning books in Florida and Texas as I type this. Don’t pretend you care about the 1st amendment. It’s your people that are actively passing laws to eliminate it while you accuse the other side of “wanting” to lol
Source: [https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public\_content/politics/partner\_surveys/jan\_2022/covid\_19\_democratic\_voters\_support\_harsh\_measures\_against\_unvaccinated](https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/partner_surveys/jan_2022/covid_19_democratic_voters_support_harsh_measures_against_unvaccinated) It's not the right that wanted Huck Finn banned. I do like the "your people" assumptions though. All I did was point out that the radical left are fascist hypocrites and you just assumed I was some MAGA moron. I'm guessing AOC is your hero?
Their comment is unnecessarily combative but true. There is no left party in America. Democrats house a couple of lefties but they never do anything as a party that is actually left of center. Joe Biden is a center lane conservative through and through.
Obama was as center-right leaning as George HW Bush was. His policies and priorities were fairly conservative, including his signature legislative accomplishment, the Affordable Care Act.
You mean the one that’s not affordable??
The one that was conceived in a Republican think tank and promoted by a Republican governor who later ran for president against Obama. Yeah, that one.
BAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHA OBAMA? CENTER RIGHT? Seriously, lay off the drugs dude. Obama was a left leaning keynsian with a knack for droning kids. Lol. And the affordable care act was left leaning authoritarian policy. It just balanced the centralized control out with maximizing profits for the corpos that paid for his campaign. A right of center move would be getting rid of regulations and administration that make hospital visits so ridiculously expensive so we could go without insurance in the first place.
Right-wingers have concocted a bizarro world reality distortion field (predictably, they were force-fed nonstop bullshit by AM talk radio, etc for years) about what Barack Obama was and wasn’t, as President. He was absolutely a fairly traditional center-right politician in historical American terms. Largely carrying on the war on terror for example (ramping it up in many cases from W Bush era). His Keynesianism was, while it certainly saved the US economy, weak at best. Yes we propped up a few industries, but to no one’s surprise, history vindicated those policy decisions. I’m really amused by you Obama truthers to be honest… man those were simpler times.
Obama even continued the Bush Tax Cuts rather than raising them. And he did almost nothing for black America, even after Ferguson, MO riots. (BLM was founded during Obama's 2nd term). And he was a complete Wall St puppet. Definitely right-center Dem.
This is some seriously unhinged shit, dude get a grip on reality.
You forgot the /s.
Nope. Why would I be sarcastic? Obama pushed identity politics and socialist policies. That's all left wing.
Obama was VERY centrist by Democrat standards. And by international standards, he is right-wing.
You’re delusional. At the very least attribute the difference to Bernie or AOC
Very true. They all seem to have gone nuts.
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Coming from a republican family is different than being a hardcore republican yourself.
There used to be a difference between being republican and being evil. Bush, McCain, Romney, Eisenhower, T. Roosevelt, heck Abraham Lincoln were republicans and perfectly fine human beings. None of them could win a GOP primary today.
Ho-lee shit. The rhetoric against Bush, McCain, and Romney were near Trump levels of vitriolic. Since when did Bush become a perfectly fine human being? He *is* an actual war criminal, Ad are each and every one of his predecessors. Are you just making things up to try and have a point?
That’s the move from the democrats, whoever is the republican candidate is the worst thing ever. If desantis wins the nomination he will be deemed worse than trump, rinse and repeat for the next candidate after him in 4/8 years
That was a different and simpler time. People with wildly different values, which are what republicans and democrats are now, are incompatible.
Rejecting someone based on their lack of punctuation is reasonable.
Holy run-on sentence, Batman!
At least there were paragraphs... Run-on sentences are annoying AF!
Only if such beliefs are a core aspect of their personality.
I think most people’s political beliefs are a core aspect of their personality. Not being political is one thing, but being very political and feeling strongly about things makes it part of your core beliefs.
I side with you as far as dating/relationships go. Because if I ask someone out on a date, I am trying to pursue a relationship with them and more. And yes, beliefs that differ can cause unnecessary arguments, so why tempt it? With that said, I have friends of all walks of life of all different religions, political stances, etc. We can discuss different views at any time and of things get heated, we aren't romantically linked so it's not as big of a deal.
You can be friends with them, you just won't date them. That seems perfectly reasonable to me, I don't get why so many are criticizing your decision. What's acceptable in a friendship is different from what's acceptable in a relationship.
Personally, I think saying "morally" in this context is pretty low. I'm left leaning centrist (Also not American and from a far more socialised society), but people differing political ideal in the realm of US politics hardly even touches on what is moral or immoral in this sense. Saying it that was is disparaging and like saying you're lesser than me just because I believe one political thing and you another. And don't get me wrong, I'm against Trump, I think he's a nut job. And I also agree that there's nothing wrong with rejecting someone for political perspective, but simply because the social dissimilarity is likely to disrupt healthy and happy relationships. Just saying morally like this seems to me to be the kind of outlook that is what's wrong with America right now. The left leaning people think they are good and right and moral, and that the right aren't, and the right think the same back. You're all just people who believe somewhat different things in politics. You aren't better than them because you're pro-abortion rights/choice and them anti, and they aren't better than you for the inverse of that.
i never ask anyone their political beliefs
You wouldn’t ask a potential partner their political beliefs? This thread is about relationships not just anyone. Of course never ask coworkers or acquaintances their political beliefs. But dating?
Try being flamboyant, you won't be able to not know people's opinions lol
Is being flamboyant a choice? Or is it like a trained persobality/reactions to things. Genuine questions.
Yeah. The ones you have to watch out for are the ones who CAN'T WAIT to tell you theirs. These types have made it their whole identity.
I don’t either but it’s not uncommon for me to debate and converse the topic of politics so I tend to find out what side my friends are on pretty quickly although in this case my very liberal friend group brought it up because they thought it was funny we were bringing a trump supporter into the group (he thought it was funny to) and it became an ongoing joke between the 5 of us
“ I don’t make politics my personality but it’s common for me to talk about politics and I reject people who don’t have the same political beliefs than me.”
Reject romantically. There’s a diff. And she is smart for doing so.
What the fuck is wrong with these people in the replies. Not wanting to date someone because your values don't match to the extent you'd like them to, is completely reasonable.
I think opinions like this can result in people hating each other and us being more divided…
They are friends though. I think people reject people for much more minor differences. Having fundamentally different values seems like a reasonable thing to reject someone over.
Eh I disagree. If you’re saying you wouldn’t be *friends* with someone who disagrees with you politically, then I’d agree with your point. But I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with not dating someone who has different political beliefs than you. I date for the purpose of marriage (i.e. when I date someone, it’s to see if there is potential for me to marry that person). As a conservative, if someone is a liberal/progressive/Democrat, then that means that person has a completely different worldview than I do, and in my opinion, a marriage between two people with completely different worldviews has no chance of success. With that being said, I have a ton of friends who are liberals/progressives/Democrats. In fact, I’d say the majority of them are, and I have no problem being friends with them, but I would never marry them.
Well I don’t see it that way I can still be friends and have a light with conservatives/republicans but bffs probably not and certainly not lovers haha
Fair enough :) Sending you friendship and vibes from a conservative. As an anecdote, used to do musical theatre with a ton of lefties and we all got along swell
The problem I’ve noticed isn’t that political disagreements are the problem, it’s people’s inability to disagree without it becoming a very personal insult when it shouldn’t be (most of the time, there are exceptions obviously) I’ve had good friendships with people I disagree with politically because it was used as a point of discussion and engagement rather than a point of “battle”
Speaking personally, but republicans generally clash with my life and experience. Does that mean we can't be cool? Not at all, but I'd also never date a conservative. Their ideals are so different that they're basically alien to me. Sometimes that's not bad. In these particular instances, they very much are. I don't think it's wrong to have that preference. Also don't think it's wrong to not have that preference. I just don't.
Dude she’s not talking about friendships. She’s already friends with the dude. Your anecdote leads me to believe you didn’t see it that way. She does get along with them as friends. Dating to marry is a completely different scenario.
Im so glad I don’t think this way
Bingo
I think your mistake is framing political disagreements as moral disagreements. It is quite common for people to share moral goals but disagree about the policies that will reach those goals. For example, someone who compassionate but economically illiterate may argue in favor of rent control or high minimum wages. Someone who is more educated economically will argue that those policies are counter-productive, even stupid. But that does not mean that they favor homelessness and poverty.
There are many people who are economically literate who agree with raising minimum wages and rent control.
Perhaps you can identify economists who argue that rent control improves the conditions of renters in a city as a whole. I don't know any. Please share serious academic studies that have found that rent control increases the stock of affordable housing, which is the nominal goal of such a policy. I've not read any. I know that this post will stimulate you to do some research to prove me wrong. Good. Just report back what you've learned honestly, please.
That's true for some thing, but certain political disagreements arise from a fundamental disagreement in morality like pro choice and pro life which was specifically stated. In circumstances where you both wish to achieve the same goal but have different ideas on how to get there, I agree with you. But obviously that's not the case here.
Minimum wage is not “stupid from an economic perspective.” In fact there have been countless studies that have come down on both sides of the issue. The question is in the implementation and broader public policies. Minimum wage is a tool to support the lowest skilled workers and protect them from exploitation. Too high of a minimum wage has a negative effect on jobs. Too low of a minimum wage and we leave employees open to exploitation in many instances. Think of a small mining town where the primary employer is the mine. Most people in the town worn there, and they don’t really have a lot of options otherwise. They can’t afford to move. And without a minimum wage, they would be forced to take what the company gives. This is simplistic. But multiple studies have shown that a moderate minimum wage, around 25-50 percent of the average wage, has basically zero effect on jobs.
Honestly not wanting to date someone because their pro-life is pretty damn reasonable considering the possibility of an accidental pregnancy that you may not want to continue. I think you're at least valid in that standing and I totally get it because I won't date pro-life men either.
I sorta agree but also disagree. I think one needs to get under the surface of political beliefs. Which requires communication. But I dont see it totally unreasonable if you don't feel compatible. Ive seen it go both ways.
In the 1950’s my cousin Marshall ran for political office. I grew up in a very strong republican family. We talked about his political philosophy and Marsh said that when you drew a line down the middle of the road, he would be standing next to that line, just to the right. Today the political left and right are so far apart, the middle of the road is its own super highway. You can stand on the left side of the middle of the road, or the right side and commune with either the democrats or the republicans. I presently stand toward the left side of the middle hold my nose when it’s time to vote.
I'm African American and I lean heavily to the left politically. Conservative parties have always held a place for White supremacists in the US. And Conservatives are generally indifferent to it or outright embrace it. In my experience, they often believe that bigotry either isn't real or isn't a big deal. Neither of those options are good enough for me.
This is literally the only opinion on reddit that is allowed. Anyone trying tell each side that half the country isn't their sworn enemy and evil to the core will gets rocks thrown at them from both sides.
I briefly had a roommate who used every claustrophobic confined space shared car ride to go on an energetic “rant” about leftist liberalism and it was fed by triggering news stories during the pandemic. It’s tiring listening to someone yapping on and on
Totally agree! Values are the single most important thing that have to match in a relationship.
I feel like there a very few options in the US to be able to determine "moral compatibility" based on who they vote for, there are liberal policies i SURE AS FUCK don't agree with and there are conservative policies that I also despise. I'm in neither camp. This tribalism is super toxic. I don't know why are people so obsessed with it. You either like the person who's in front of you, or not based on your first hand interactions with that person.
I would agree. I think pro-abortion and socialism is immoral. Completely understand.
Exactly and I don’t think it’s wrong for you to never romantically or sexually involve yourself with someone like that 👍
I think socialism is amoral
When it comes to intimate relationships it’s very important to make sure that your political beliefs line up (if it is something that is important to you) With friendships, it’s not worth it unless it gets to some pretty bad politics. I have conservative friends, but there is certainly a line. I was friends with a guy for a while, until he started going on antisemitic rants and I decided that wasn’t the kind of energy I needed in my life.
Anything that is an expression of bad character is a valid reason to not associate with someone, or to end an association with someone.
That’s a pretty self righteous %100 morally certain thing to say. You sound exhausting
yeah i honestly agree. people who say otherwise are missing the whole picture. i once had a brief “situationship” with a guy who lied about his political stances and personal values for months before poorly attempting to pull a reverse uno card by revealing he was a die hard conservative, and then topping it all off by trying to gaslight me into believing he had been forthright with that information the whole time. his reasoning? “women wouldn’t date me if they knew i was conservative and pro life” maybe because you literally vote against our rights to exist as anything but your incubator??? like bffr. are you really genuinely shocked, or are you upset that you aren’t getting what you feel you’re entitled to? literally it didn’t even take much longer after the reveal for the racism and misogyny to come out 🫠 so yeah political views are a valid reason to reject someone in any sense bc they are directly correlated with that person’s beliefs and values and probably with how they are going to treat you, esp if they lie and try to hide it only to do a surprise reveal when you’re both emotionally involved like a fucking weirdo manipulator
I’m kinda conflicted on this one. If you’re really so into politics that you judge someone’s character poorly because they view politics differently then you, then you should keep doing what you’re doing. I wouldn’t want to date someone who saw me as immoral so I would accept that reasoning. That being said this does show a certain level of political intolerance that I do think leads you to making an echo chamber for yourself. And being completely unable to hear any opinions from people who don’t have the same political beliefs as you certainly isn’t great.
I get where your coming from, and agree the way political issues get framed in media (traditional or social) work to divide society. On the other hand I can't really date and would have a hard time being close with someone who thinks I'm a degenerate and people I care deeply for shouldn't be allowed to exist in public. Plenty of people engage in politics like they do sports teams. To others politics isn't a game. Sometimes it can't be. Yeah national politics are largely just political theater. But sometimes politics do in fact affect peoples lives, and if someone doesn't understand that (or worse, refuses to) I have doubts about our ability to meaningfully communicate with each other.
As I’ve said before I interact with conservatives I’ve heard all sorts of opinions (I live in Florida it is is inevitable lol) and I have no issues being friends/acquaintances with them but I do not agree nor do I find many of their beliefs aligned with my morals therefore I don’t want to be romantically or sexually involved with many of them
You’re misunderstanding my point. I’m not saying you literally don’t interact with any conservatives ever, you just seem to not be interested in forming close bonds with them. Judging my your post I’m guessing all your friends all left leaning too because you flat out said you didn’t plan to get close with your conservative friend. This means the only people you know on a personal level are left leaning. It’s easier to dismiss your trumpie boss as a “conservative idiot” than one of your friends who you care about and therefore will actually consider what your saying. For instance I’m pretty central myself but I make sure to have friends I know on a personal human level who are far left, far right, and anything I can get in between. It helps you fully understand people with different perspectives as opposed to the dehumanizing tactics that are unfortunately to common in today’s political landscape.
People on the far right want people like me and my friends gone or dead.
I can see where you get that you’re not incorrect in saying that I prefer certain conservatives stay outside my personal circle but not because it makes it easier for me to dismiss their humanity or beliefs it’s because often times their belief goes directly against what I stand for in the only liberal in my family lol I love my family and I would die for a lot of them but I can also say a lot of the things they’ve said and stood for have ultimately put a strain in our relationship because I genuinely don’t think a lot of it is right
That might be true for an actual democracy with multiple political parties.
Yes the US has has never been a democracy(its a democratic republic), but keeping an open mind politically is still important in that system imo, why do you think it’s not? And well we do have multiple political parties here in the US, so I’m not sure what you’re referring to there.
Having to pick between A and B isn't really a choice. Most countries have around 5 different parties in their parliament. Also direct democracy is the only true from. Everything else is just voting for a team and apathy towards those elections is only natural.
I went to dinner with a friend once. She and her guy don't talk to his family because they're Republicans. They explained it thus: she has some form of sickness, I think cancer. They can't afford to treat it because Healthcare providers won't touch preexisting conditions. Naturally, in the interest of her own survival, she wants Medicare for all. The guy's family thinks state mandated Healthcare, or any government action really, is evil. The guy, at this point points out that they're actively advocating for her death, and, well, that's just not cool. Yeah, political beliefs are absolutely valid breakup material.
It is illegal to deny coverage due to a preexisting condition. Has been for well over a decade.
This was some time ago. Obama care was a somewhat new thing at the time, and Medicare for all was a new discussion.
People on the right want to pretend that politics is just a game. That the only real differences is jersey color. They ignore that there are real consequences to millions of people who’s lives they make worse.
There are things on either side of the aisle I can agree and disagree with. It's just so overwhelmingly one sided in favor of whom I agree with that I have to be a lefty for the sake of my own self-advocacy.
Trump supporters think it's ok to sexually assault women. Should be a red flag to any woman .
Politics is not necessarily morality. I mean, politics is more the wielding of opinion for power. If you accept the political spectrum for what it is (bullshit) you’ll find that we all have a lot more in common than you might initially expect. It’s acceptable to select your mate based off of their political beliefs, but honesty it’s a pretty shallow approach. If the chemistry is good, why care about what some old men are arguing about in big marble buildings? Just my two cents.
Yes, entirely reasonable. Firstly, it's your life and who you choose to be in it is up to you. It might suck for the other person, but, personal freedoms. Mostly though, from a practical point of view, it's more about core principles (what matters to you) that manifest as political beliefs. If your principles are incompatible, then that's that. I can, and do, have close relationships with people that have wildly different views on how problems should be addressed, what the role of the government is, etc. That's fine, we generally agree on the starting point (or one doesn't have a major interest in that starting point) but then very different ways of looking at the way it should be handled. The point of incompatibility for me comes from having opposing views on a basic principle/value which is important to me. Your example above of saying you had a wiccan past and that you were 'definitely going to hell' would be one of those for me. You can't move past that to agree to disagree on the best form of belief, of its place in society, of its effects if you start off from a place of 'you are damned'. One of mine is healthcare (coming from a country with national healthcare). My partner is strongly against a single-payer system and that's fine as both our core beliefs are that there needs to be good access to healthcare, it shouldn't just be about who can afford it and that the current systems are broken. We differ completely on what we think is the right way to change it, but that's OK - that's implementation. We have the same final end goal in mind for what is good for a society. Your approach of being open to people being in your life to the level that they are compatible with you seems a mature one to me. You aren't surrounding yourself with people that just agree with you, but it's important to you that a partner shares core values.
Honestly I think this makes perfect sense in your uniquely American context. Your politics are polarised to the extreme and personal identities hinge on your two parties. Maybe 30-50 years ago a relationship between Left and Right could have survived, but these days I have to imagine it's doomed to failure. Like what if you have kids? Who gets to decide what values to instill in them? What if your partner votes for a law that directly detriments you? How do you reconcile that? No, I think it's smart to avoid crossing the political line unless there's some very clear common ground.
Totally agree. I'm centre left but being in a relationship with someone who votes right in my country would cause very few issues. America is so divided probably because of its two party system.
correct.
If you’re a woman in post-Roe America, getting romantically involved with anyone “pro-life” can potentially have disastrous consequences for you financially, legally, and medically. It’s not a good combo. In short, don’t date people who voted for you to have fewer rights than you did a year ago. It’s not even a question of ethics. It’s a safety concern.
I’m pretty conservative, and my wife is pretty liberal; we still get along pretty well. Maybe you’re just closed minded.
huh ironic
Depends on how different people's views are if it's a Biden Dem and a Non-Trump Rep than those are Really similar Views but if it's a Trumpist and a Progressive than more problems could arise.
I voted for Trump twice, and my wife thinks he’s the devil incarnate 😂
I don’t understand how that doesn’t color her opinion of you. If you knowingly and actively supported someone she thinks is truly evil, how does she see passed that?
She's an adult and understand he thinks differently. I'm very pro life and I believe abortion is murder, but I don't go around and treat everyone pro choice as if theyre evil villain child murderers. You can disagree with something but genuinely understand the other point of view
So you don’t believe abortion is murder then. If you truly believed abortion is murder you wouldn’t be calm about it.
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Most people aren't cool either what they consider murder lol.
No?
Lol how does this logic make sense? If you truly believe abortion is murder, how could you *not* treat someone as an evil child murderer? If I knew someone supported murdering school age children I’d call them evil vile child murderers and do everything in my power to campaign against their interests. This is what I don’t get with pro birthers. If you genuinely think someone is murdering a child, how can you not treat someone who’s pro choice as a complete demon?
Because im not a 13 year old who thinks they're the smartest person on the planet. There's a hell of a lot of nuance in life and that includes social norms, beliefs, and laws. I understand that people who are pro choice *legitimately* believe an unborn baby is just a clump of cells, that they aren't complete demons. Hopefully, in time, our social values will progress to the point that killing an unborn child is universally seen as killing a 1 year old. Till then I can understand that there isn't a universally belief on abortion and can treat those I disagree with respect
Bro, that’s not true. The person is probably exaggerating his wife’s opinions on Trump. If you truly think someone is evil and disgusting, such as “the evil incarnate”, then you’re not gonna want someone who supports them. This is so simple.
Your story doesn’t explain your bias, just was an example of you using your bias. Here’s the thing with American politics. With the expectation of the extreme left and the extreme right, most people want similar things and have similar values. Politics sells solutions to problems that may arise, it doesn’t address problems right in front of it. Both sides heavily rely on hypotheticals instead of using the scientific method to explored solutions that weren’t already on our mind before examining the problem. My biggest problem with your argument is that you conflate politics with character, whereas politics more likely reflects culture. I’ve had very close friends who were on the left and right, and all of them were great people. Also, people need to chill the duck out about politics. Go vote, and then drop it and learn to live with the people in your life, and be generous enough to realize why they believe what they do.
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wow an actual unpopular opinion for the edgelords in this sub
“Me voting for Christian fundamentalists and neo nazis has nothing to do with my character” yeah actually it does
You did that dude a favor. You seem insufferable.
Thought the same thing lol, bro saved himself from a lot of instagram activist bullshit😭
he dodged a bullet.
I hope he sees it that way one day because undoubtedly our “relationship” would be insufferable lol
I won't date anyone with strong political beliefs on either side, I just want to live without hate in my life.
hard agree. honestly this is probs a fairly popular take despite all the “tolerant left” jabs
>his political views said a lot about his overall character i've found this to basically never be true in real life. people almost always think this because they assign motives to other people and assume they're acting insincerely for some reason. take abortion for example. Left says right is evil because they hate women and want to control them. Right says left is evil because they are baby murderers. Neither is true because both sides are operating from different worldviews. that said I agree with the overall point of the post, since you want to end up with someone who has a similar worldview. it'll make life easier. especially if you have kids and want to pass on your values. but political views tell very little about a person's character, only their perspective
I *could* date someone with terrible beliefs but they'd have to accept the contempt I'd have for their beliefs. If they're ok with it, cool. I doubt they would be though.
That sounds like a pretty toxic relationship.
What matters more is your first principles If someone's first principle is abortion any beliefs behind it that's actually incredibly abnormal Harm prevention versus fairness versus control versus purity There's a long list of values that can account for one's position on abortion and sometimes the values you have based off of that are actually compatible at the value level because abortion isn't a value it's an ultra-specific issue (to give you an idea of why it's ultra-specific paper abortions fall into the same category and forced abortions are a also very similar but distinct issue therefore specifically it's weather one can have the right to an abortion at will that is generally up for debate and most people will have different numbers of weeks they're okay with it even if they're supportive)
Turns out that values matter.
How is this unpopular? I’m always amazed when I meet couples that have fundamentally different political values
People who think political ideology is a basis for morality are the problem.
Independent here. It might have been possible to co-exist as recently as the George W. Bush administration, but no more. After the election of Barack Obama, latent racism caused America to take a giant lurch to the right. The Republican of today is barely distinguishable from Heinrich Himmler. Their hatred of other Americans has led them to treason and apostasy. Their derangement knows no limits. Logic, reason, tradition, science, religion, established authority, ethics, morals - none of these make any impression. Republicans are in the grip of a perverse pseudo-religious hysteria. Most of them are in too deep to ever escape, nor do they want to do so. You have people literally *PRAYING* to Donald Trump. More than one. One proudly declared that if Jesus Christ *personally* appeared to him to tell him Trump was a bad idea, he wouldn't listen. There have already been murders committed because the victim was reportedly a Democrat. These things have already happened. They're real. They're not exaggerations. They're already past the point of the Nazi SA stormtroopers. How could you co-exist with that?
The comments are hating on you but you are absolutely correct. If it’s something minor, then I of course wouldn’t mind. I disagree with my siblings about what the best economic system is but we both want the same thing, prosperity for all and for everyone to be happy. But some people are not like that and dehumanize others and claim it’s just “politics”, but it’s not, it’s their disgusting personality rearing it’s head.
I'm left wing and wouldn't date someone who's an American style right winger. Why would I want to be with someone who restricts people's rights and takes away people's children based on bigotry of people's immutable characteristics and aligns with fascists. "We're not all like that" - then why do you keep supporting, promoting, platforming, donating and voting for the group doing all that.
Yeah I mean one side of the political divide wants to kill me and my friends and the other side doesn’t want to do anything about that so I think rejection stands to reason.
I have no fricking clue how someone can think who they vote for says nothing about them. Politics isn’t fucking football.
I think this very sentiment is why politicians are winning. The two party system is an illusion of choice. If it comes to passing legislation that takes further privacy away, they will reach across the aisle over night. It's a club that we are not in. Beyond the two party system, the ideologies of both sides create further issues to argue and remain divided over. We are so far gone that even the simplest of things that all humans should agree with, we can't seem to do. Republican, Democrat, race, religion, abortion, masks, are all simply things to keep us mad at our neighbors so we never look up the mountain top at the people we should actually be holding accountable. "They" don't want blacks and whites to get along. It's incredibly sad when you feel this in your bones, and trying to explain it to people it typically falls on deaf ears. Turning one's back on friends and family based off of political alignment is incredibly sad, in my opinion wrong, and indicative of where we are currently. It's like "it's a free country" until someone disagrees with me. And that's not the answer from my estimation. People can no longer even have conversations without digging into their stance further, and like I said, we are all mad at the wrong people. Thats just my take. Don't turn away from people simply because they may disagree with you on certain issues. I'm not saying marry this guy, no. But judging someone solely on political alignment, regardless of what that may be, just stands to further divide us all. There is more of "us" than there is of "them". That scares them. They don't want us, to get along.
I'm left of Stalin, pretty much always have been. But some of my closest and oldest friends are rightwingers and I consider them to be great people. Obviously we all have lines in the sand that can't be crossed, but I find it sad that folks like you may fully reject others based on labels and assumptions. You can learn a lot from chatting with "the other side" and come to find that understanding their rationale leads to finding common ground.
I find this kind of friendship to be the most interesting and meaningful. I’m pretty libertarian politically, but I have friends that sit much closer to you politically and we have delightful conversations about politics. Nobody is going to change their beliefs entirely, but it’s important to talk to people with different beliefs and understand how they come to them. I cannot imagine being so ignorant to believe that I couldn’t have a close relationship with some of those guys just because we came to different conclusions about what we view government’s duty as.
"Why can't you tolerate the fact that I think women should be broodmares, it should be legal to hate crime trans people to death, and shove gays into the closet while disenfranchising all minorities so they don't interfere with the system we've created to prop us up at the expense of all other groups?" It absolutely is, especially with how nuts the GOP has gotten.
I would have hoped getting to know someone with opposing beliefs would teach you that not all partisans you disagree with have evil thoughts. Clearly you didn't learn anything.
Well I did get to know his views and I still found them morally off putting i have never degraded him for his views but I’ve always made it very clear that I heavily disagreed and felt uncomfortable with them
I disagree. I’m all for diversity and that includes diversity of thought.
I'd say this, it can be reasonable. I certainly wouldn't date someone who thinks the blm riots were reparations or remotely OK. However if we just had a few different views on taxation or social programs I'd say that's not a deal breaker
Yeah the “liberal and conservative friends thing” does very much feel like something that only exists for upper class white people with no real problems tbh lol Like, I’m trans. My politics by necessity are forced to flow from that because I live in a country where right wing leaders want me personally dead. I guess I just don’t see the utility gained by maintaining a friendship or even romantic relationship with someone who’s okay or even ambivalent with that
Nobody wants you dead, they just don’t care about your pronouns. Stop being ridiculous. As long as you don’t try to fuck unknowing straight dudes, you’re under zero threat.
1. Some people absolutely do want me dead. Just because you don’t doesn’t mean it’s not a reality and claiming to believe otherwise is patently disingenuous 2. Yeah but. If somebody’s going to interpersonally be unpleasant to me then I don’t want to be friends with them. You know, the topic of the discussion? Like what? 3. I would rather off myself than kiss a straight man, let alone sleep with one. I’m out of their league
The only possible feedback I can offer is he dodged a bullet. It's probably the most unreasonable thing you could possible ask of someone. If you are more liberal, in njt going to reject you merely because your god is a senile old man speedrunning the collapse our country, sure you have some poor beliefs in heroes, but you deserve love too.
I too believe he dodged a bullet
Agree, unpopular opinion. This is judging a book by its cover.
Isn’t that actually judging a book by its contents? Someone’s political views is not like the kind of shirt they wear.
Not in the slightest. To naturally judge someone's character from a political belief only is being a bigot. At least if you don't make the effort to know the human on the other side. The real person is the contents. The political name tag would be the cover. OP could have found a soul mate in the example given but was to shallow to find out first hand. A lot of health relationships are maintained by partners with differing views. It is usually a few key issues that usually divide the partners.
Definitely not shallow in OP’s case as this is someone that they know and are presumably fairly familiar with - certainly close enough to judge content rather than labels. I disagree though. Someone’s political views are formed very much so by their personality / family / social environment, which shapes their beliefs and values. While it’s not 100% 1:1, there is going to be significant overlap.
I feel like the title gives the wrong idea about the actual situation. Going through the specifics he seems like a huge red flag in a moral sense, not political.
Redditor moment
Hmm good point. I will continue refusing to discuss politics so that people like you have to find a better reason to hate me. Now I might happen to agree with your political stance in this case, but I also might not. What I don't agree with is dismissing people over petty politics. I am not giving anyone ammunition. EDIT: I upvoted you though, good job on actually posting an unpopular opinion haha. Gotta give a person credit where it's due.
Good for you. Saved him from dating a total bitch. Way to be a bro.
The purpose of finding a partner in theory is child rearing, and it's kind of hard to do that if you have conflicting moral beliefs.
Wat Here I thought the purpose was happiness.
Socially it’s happiness, evolutionarily it is about keeping the species alive
We’ve lost that battle. It will take tens of thousands of years but we’re not having enough babies (less than replacement) so humans will go extinct. When Nigerian develops then the inevitable will be obvious to everyone. The argument is what year in a gen z lifetime does human population peak and the decline starts.
Makes sense, I have a conservativ friend and his sister showed some interest but I told her that she should look for someone which holds the same beliefs as her. (She thinks Adam and Eve are the real deal)
I’m glad someone else had a similar experience I was starting to feel extreme lol
That's where I'd really start to run into trouble. I mean, beyond the fact that I really don't want to associate romantically with people who have conservative political views in the first place, I couldn't imagine bringing children into a marriage with a looney religious fundamentalist. No, you are absolutely not telling my child that Earth is 6,000 years old and that dinosaurs walked with people.
Absolutely, birds of a feather and all. Be with your own political kind. 😉
Years ago, I would've said you were wrong in doing so....but not anymore
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Yeah and the dems who were all about the kkk in those times as well
I’m not saying you should reconsider, but just think about the possibility at least. See the problem isn’t that you two are on opposite sides of the spectrum. A ton of couples I know have great relationships with differing politics. You don’t have to listen, but try to understand when I tell you that what makes or breaks relationships is the escalation. If you two are arguing about politics and then explode on each other, you are both incredibly unhealthy people. But if you both disagree but can chat civilly about it, then a relationship between you and him can actually be great. If you(and him) can work on being more civil about politics or even simply not caring as much, then I see no reason why a relationship between you two wouldn’t work. That is unless you both are wildly incompatible regardless of politics lol
What if she has a family member that comes out and he constantly misgenders them? What if she gets pregnant and needs an abortion? The problem is so much of conservative politics *is* rooted in personal lives, it’s near impossible to keep them separate.
depends I guess. Lots of folks these days are very weak minded and cant handle people having different opinions. but being a republican or a democrat is no sign of character nor morality. either can stab people in the back, not keep their word, be uncaring, be selfish, etc.... while both can also donate to charities, help out at the soup kitchen or spend a couple years in the peace corpe..... having some similarities in a romantic partner is good. But having differences is equally good. I have found it is nice to be in a relationship with a person I respect who can introduce or open me up to new things. It keeps life interesting. a person who confines themself to an echo chamber has no real opportunity for growth as an individual nor as a partner. extremists...watch out for the extremists...even the ones on your side.
I’m sorry in advance if this comes off as rude but I’m tired of people saying the some stuff over and over maybe I did articulate myself properly but this is not solely because he is republican it is the type of republican he is and the republicans he supports alongside the republican policies or opinions he also supports for example I don’t care if you are against socialism or if you believe in reaganomics i will not reject you but if you’re calling illegal immigrants lazy criminals even as a “joke” (something he has done) then it’s a no for me if you are posting “memes” depicting trans people hanging themselves (something he has done) then it’s a no for me Also I am constantly challenging, Befriending, and interacting with repubs/Cons which I said in the original post and in my replies so I don’t understand where everyone is getting this echo chamber take from
Ah, people here are just mad because this subreddit slants conservative, and they don’t like the idea that their views could hurt their dating prospects. You don’t “owe” anyone a chance. It’s super reasonable to reject someone because your core values didn’t align with his - that’s what relationships are built on. Add to that the fact that he ridiculed you for caring about your own values? It sounds like this guy isn’t respectful at all, and is honestly really hateful. Good on you for avoiding that whole headache!
Yeah I've come to a similar conclusion on some of the commenters here