In an editorial published last week titled, “If Attitudes Don’t Shift, A Political Dating Mismatch Will Threaten Marriage,” The Washington Post’s editorial board points out that political polarization in this country has reached the point where it is now a prominent, often decisive factor in determining who Americans settle on as their potential mates. They emphasize this trend is now so acute it may actually threaten the institution of marriage as a whole. In particular, it seems that Democratic women are rejecting potential Republican suitors not only for marriage but as relationship material, all across the board. The message the editorial conveys—perhaps hyperbolically, perhaps not—is that as a consequence of this shift in attitudes, marriage itself in this country is in jeopardy.
Guys, I’m an old (52) hetero man in a red state (Florida).
I have had more luck dating in the last 4-years than ever in life. My god. The fine, fine women I’ve met and known (yes, biblically known) has been mind blowing. (Just married one last Friday!)
But if I had had anything conservative on my dating profiles? Yeah. No. HARD no from these women.
One time I joked about being a redneck.
“Uh… Exactly how redneck?”
“If you’re asking like that? I’m something of a country boy, but I fucking loathe Trump.”
“Oh. Whew. Just checking.”
“What? A redneck?”
"Yeah, got a sunburn on a ‘black lives matter’ ralley.
Whew, forgot about that one. 2016, brings back memories…
I don’t get it. I mean look at all of the dudes in the main photo. All dreamboats.
Fingers McGee is definitely a keeper. His furrowed brow and lack of wedding ring show he’s definitely on the market. Sure, he could have taken it off because he’s travelling for the rally and is hoping for some fresh rally tail, but he looks so politically engaged he has to be “real”. By bucking the traditional maga red, his bright blue hat he shows he is his own person. He also connects to his roots with a shirt featuring a sweet whitetail ready for mounting.
Dopey on his left let’s the ladies know he is prepared with two pens in his T-shirt pocket. His four necks shows he can afford groceries in Biden’s economy.
Just behind Dopey is my pervy 9th grade math teacher that always made comments about his “skivies” and not holding farts in. He’s off the market as he is married to Louise. She’s loves her neighborhood - except that weird Laotian family down the block - and truly believes Thelma Harper from Momma’s Family is a fashion icon.
To the right is Russian expat, Leonard Chesnakek, aka Lenny Chesney . He loves his folded hat with sunglasses more than his mom’s borsht. He also secretly loves his matching pink shirt and shorts even though he tells his girlfriend of 2 weeks, Mary, he hates them because “they’re gay”. Mary has no idea what’s going on and is wondering when she can go pee.
To Lefty’s immediate right, we witness Don and Lisa having an existential moment. After 26 years in the military and defending the constitution, the realization that 2 years of retirement and a 10 hour daily dose of FEAUX News might not have been such a good idea.
Thelma Harper from Momma’s Family
Damn dude, this is a deep cut.
Bwaahahahah Thank you for this!
What the fuck is up with the pens and that mother fucker put on a deer shirt to go somewhere.
42% of women voted for Trump. As a left leaning person living in a red state, there are plenty of trump loving women for them to choose from in their 30’s. Republican men in liberal areas are probably going to feel it though lol
I would guess a large portion of that 42% of women are on the older side, which, for the purposes of this article, would not really be considered peak marriage or dating age.
They may very well also already be married. Probably to a Trumptard.
Some actually notable percentage is probably also older conservative Somali men bringing their wives and voting age daughters and standing over them at the bottom booth. I shit you not, the last election I worked had at least 5 of those come in and sit there repeatedly calling the machine judges over repeatedly asking us who the Republican candidate was so they could instruct their families how to vote. You’re not supposed to watch what someone else is polling, but we also aren’t equipped or staffed to handle someone doing that shit.
42% not of child bearing age too
white women are probably the largest group of women and since a majority voted for trump; there’s at least one group of women that’s okay with trump supporters.
“I worship a racist orange Nazi , why won’t women touch my pee pee?!?!”
Probably because of the tiny hands
If only we could breed out that stupidity, like an inverse Idiocracy. Still, props to those American women with standards.
Don’t worry they’ll have 10 kids in each household so they won’t die out.
Not just per household. I know one who shit talks previous women he kept sleeping with, knowing they wanted kids when he didn’t, because the women kept the kids. I learned he was a Trump supporter because we talked about abortion when federal rights were removed. He had many opinions that don’t make sense individually, but upon my promoting he admitted he wanted control and men should have the full right to decide what happens to a women’s body, either the dad or the man who she is currently sleeping with, those two can determine what happens to her, but women should have no autonomy. He isn’t the smartest and I’m sure was repeating what others have told him, but the entitlement is intense.
That shit should get him on a watchlist at minimum
When this editorial came out a few days ago, I decided to cancel my WaPo subscription as the straw that broke the camel’s back. I have been a subscriber for years, but I cannot deal with this ridiculous agenda they are pushing over and over again. Marriage isn’t a default good thing. People should choose if they want to be married or not. If the institution is failing because women are making a feminist choice to take care of themselves, let it fail. They push this line over and over again and as someone who divorced a bad male partner, it’s NOT OK.
But the birth rate is declining! Capitalism needs ever more workers or the profits might dip! Just hold your nose and date a maga creep. Do it for America!
Yeah, literal Nazi ideology. Treating women as brood mares to make sure your toxic ideology can continue.
On no! You can’t call them Nazis or fascists or they’ll become Nazis and fascists out of spite!
(If I had a dollar for every time I had that convo…)
Oh it’s not ideological per se. They just want the labor force to produce more labor units. That’s just business.
but only white babies… none of those brown people!
This is one of those things that really is interesting about the labor and capitalistic ideal that we have to have more people to keep the economy going. There are LOTS of people willing to do the low end parts of the economy but that means we have to accept that the color of the average American will get darker.
Basically they want their cake and to eat it too.
As a human being with a brain, I don’t understand why they push this agenda either.
I don’t agree with how it’s presented in the article, but I do agree that declining marriage rates can be as much of a good sign as much as it’s bad.
It’s a great thing that more people, especially women, are able to decide if marriage is the right choice for them. It’s a bad thing that for people who are interested in marriage or a lifelong partner, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a partner. There is a loneliness epidemic going on, and it is getting increasingly difficult to get to know people due to rising work hours, burn out, lack of public and walkable spaces, lack of vacation days, rising costs of living, political radicalization, social distancing during covid, mental health decline, dating culture, gendered expectations, and so on.
It’s not a bad thing that people are remaining single, it’s a bad thing that for some people this choice was made for them due to the circumstances they are in. Ideally, people would get to decide whether they want to stay single or get married. Right now the options are stay single or go through the ever increasing hurdles of finding a partner when you are already struggling to get by yourself.
When people are happy, have healthcare, affordable housing, and livable wages, marriage is much more affordable. Right now, we have none of that and declining marriage rates are as much a sign that marriage has become optional as it has become non-viable.
I’m a hetero male. I won’t even date a woman who is a Trump supporter. I’d be extremely suspicious of any woman who hates themselves and others so much, no matter how attractive she seems.
I would also assume she has little to no respect for medical science. I don’t want to be around, expose my friends and family to (or worse, start a family with) someone who second guesses doctors or distrusts vaccines.
As a happily married man in my 50s who isn’t dating anyone, if I found myself single again I would drag my penis across broken glass before I’d date a Trump supporter. I would be celibate for the rest of my life and live alone in a shack if the other option was to be involved with a Trump supporter.
If my wife had gone maga, I’d have gone full intervention. I’m a big believer in letting people be themselves, but there are lines that shall not be crossed.
Oh. the crocodile tears I will shed for them.
Another interesting way to read that headline is “Jeff Bezos is very worried that American Women don’t want to marry Trump supporters.”
Because, y’know, he owns The Washington Post.
EDIT: tfw Jeff Bezos downdoots you twice
Which makes sense really, he profits off the idiots that constantly vote against their own best interests.
Something remotely similar is happening in Germany: Eastern Germany is being fled by young women because of the bad economy in these parts of the country - and because the dating pool there is very, very unattractive. A lot of men that live there have traits and views similar to those who follow the maga cult, and that does not appeal to young women, not at all.
This makes the guys even more angry and therefore even more undateable. The circle continues.
Pretty sure this is just natural selection in action. Unfit mates are less desirable. This has less to do with political polarization and more to do with fundamentally unfit partners.
Marriage isn’t in jeopardy, it’s just that a portion of straight people will either choose not to partake because their options are worse than nothing, and those options will not get to partake by nature of being worse than nothing.
My marriage is fine, because we’re both communists. My gf and her husband are happily married because they’re both left wing feminists. It would be a much worse problem if we made nothing worse than a trump supporter
Good! Less americans in the future!
Honestly a based outcome
Women having the Freedom to choose who they date is SOCIALISM!
I don’t really understand the fear mongering going on here. It’s not like if we decline past a certain level of marriages that all of a sudden marriages would go extinct. People who want to get married will still get married and people who don’t, won’t.
But I mean, even if they did, would we really be losing much anyway? Marriage has never quite made sense to me other than for tax purposes (which is a pretty cruddy reason to formalize being with someone forever imo)
It’s always seemed super short sighted. People change. And you can’t predict how they may change. Your partner that you love now could end up changing into someone you no longer love or worse. Committing to forever is just promising that you’ll stay with them even if they make you profoundly unhappy. I’ve only got this one life to live. I’m not commiting all of it to someone I may not like being around later on.
You’re missing an important part in what marriage does: Formal representation for each other, may it be law or health. That means you have someone can make decisions for you if you’re not able to (or get information about your where abouts). If both expect to stay together some time it simplifies a lot of things.
And if it turns out you don’t like each other anymore, there is always the option to get divorced.
I have no interested in marriage and I find the concept absolutely bonkers. I shouldn’t be financially and legally bound to someone to be their romantic partner. Been with my SO 16 years and we have a home, absolutely not interested in having kids and have never had any reason for marriage.
And if he ever has any medical or other kind of debt I won’t be responsible for it. I won’t be responsible for his funerary expenses etc and vice versa. I should not be responsible for someone I didn’t birth. He’s been there while I recovered from surgery at the hospital. Being married does nothing. He is listed as the one getting my life insurance and will get my savings if something happened to me. No kids, no exes, nobody to try and contest it. And if something changed I don’t have to worry about ‘divorce’ and all that bullshit. What’s mine is mine, what’s his is his. He can use my debit card if he wants and I can cut access with a press of a button if we somehow broke up, which won’t happen but still, it would be a clean break unlike married couples. Marriage is pointless.
You left out the most important part.
Kids.
Yes, people’s attitudes change. You can undo everything else, but there is one thing you cannot undo: kids. There’s no going back from having a child, being a father, being a mother. Sure, there’s visitation, but that just sucks for everyone, especially the child.
Marriage is not so much a lifetime commitment to a spouse, as it is a commitment to the children you would eventually nurture.
As someone who grew up with divorced parents my biggest concern was having to deal with twice as many holiday parties. Do not stay together because of kids. If you actually care about your kids then split up and don’t try to use the kids as a barganing chip in the divorce. Be willing to work with the other parent on custody. Accept that you both need to spend time with your children (assuming there is no abuse going on). But growing up in a house with parents that hate each other is a good way to fuck up your kids for life.
I disagree, as a parent you can have children, but you’re stuck with your spouse for potentially the rest of your life. Your kids will probably move out of your house at some point, pursue careers and start their own families. Your kids are not going to live with you forever.
Take it from someone who grew up with parents that stayed together because they had kids. It’s terrible for everyone. Especially the kids. However bad you think visitation is, the alternative is worse.
