She was MAGA, He was a Lib, Can I Make it Any More Obvious?
The couples who disagree on politics, and how they're surviving the 2024 election
Welcome to CHH: Election Week edition! I had some political-adjacent ideas in my backlog, and even though this isn’t a politics publication, I wanted to get them out before Election Night, because I don’t think anyone is going to want to read anything political for a while, regardless of who wins. So, enjoy! But don’t worry—this isn’t the New Normal for CHH. Regular programming will resume after the election!
I feel like I can get along pretty well with people who disagree with me politically. I’m a liberal (borderline leftist on some things, more center-left on others) and I have friends (okay, not friends per se, but close Twitter mutuals) across the political spectrum, obviously excluding straight-up nazis. Although I did just get added the following list:
Anyway, I like to think I can interact civilly with people across the left and the right, even if I’m firmly on the left. I have mutuals who disagree with me on lots of things—including things that are really personal to me—but because they’re just Twitter mutuals, I kind of…don’t care? I can enjoy a funny tweet, or have a polite exchange, without worrying about someone’s political views.
And is there any benefit to completely blocking out people who disagree with me? Some conservatives follow me and interact with my writing, knowing full well that I’m liberal. Some of them even agree with me on certain things. Isn’t it better that my writing is reaching people who are different than I am, who might explore new perspectives? Isn’t it good that people are able to interact on shared apolitical views, even if we disagree on political stuff? As tempting as it is to say “unfollow me now if you don’t believe in universal healthcare,” that feels like more of a personal, cathartic action than anything beneficial for society. I make my personal views clear, but if my work reaches people on the right (or the far left), awesome! I hope they like it and see something new!
But as much as I might wax poetic about everyone holding hands and being warm and fuzzy, I have to ask myself: if I were single, could I marry a right-wing man? Not a full blown fascist man, but a regular Republican-voting man who likes guns and trucks? And…honestly, I don’t know.
I’ve had the privilege of growing up with my husband, since we met young, and we’ve developed our political views in tandem. I’ve always just taken it for granted that we would agree on everything. When we were first dating, we watched 2008 election coverage from the TVs at our college gym. I also distinctly remember us watching 2020 with bated breath as I suddenly got nauseous at the idea of a Trump win and went to bed, my husband waking me up hours later to cheerfully announce that Arizona was called for Biden. When Biden was officially announced as the winner (thanks to millions of dead people voting, of course) we celebrated on our deck together and toasted to his win. I can’t imagine how that would have unfolded if we disagreed on politics, especially in any major way. Would I have celebrated alone while he sulked? Would he have put politics aside and joined me anyway? Would we have just decided not to watch election coverage at all, and pretend nothing was happening?
I’ve also seen numerous takes (which granted, might be wishful thinking from right wing men) about how liberal women can’t find men who agree with them politically who they find attractive, because conservative men are more manly and therefore hotter. I don’t know, I think there are plenty of attractive lib or leftist men out there, but I will concede that I would get the ick from a guy who was so woke that he repeatedly “called me out” for various unwitting transgressions—like, a Democrat is obviously preferred, but a “going to restaurants is fascism” guy would simply not work for me, any more than a Trump supporter would.
But men are more likely to be Republican than women are, which means there must be a lot of liberal women who have to compromise and date a Republican. Or maybe the political difference is a bit sexy and taboo, who knows.
I was curious about these dynamics as we get into the contentious 2024 election. So naturally, I started talking to couples in this boat—over 100 of them—to hear their stories.
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