The (Political) Dating Game

The thing about trust is, once you break it, it's very hard to earn it back. The Republicans are about to learn the hard way.

I’ve been thinking a lot about where we go as a society from here, now knowing there’s a not insignificant part of our society who have somehow never been taught basic human decency. I keep hearing talk, and frankly parroting talk, about how we need to allow people to have a way back into the proverbial fold, but I’m having a difficult time figuring out what that looks like. In part, that’s because I just watched a mano-sphere podcast where the basic monologue was that “Trump lies, but he lies with purpose and sometimes he misses the mark.”

This is disturbing on so many levels.

It’s basic red-pill stuff right there. Lying to get what you want? This is literally how they talk about dating, if you’ve ever plugged in for a minute.

And that’s the problem that I used to think we had to work out somehow is figuring out how to develop a useful working relationship with someone you can’t trust. You know we’re not going to be friends again after all of this madness. Another way to think about it, and how I do now, is: how do you raise your child with your abusive ex?

In this example, the United States of America is the child, and the abusive ex-lover is the Republican Party. When we first met, we were attracted to the discipline and self-confidence that we saw in you. We thought, hey, that’s a person who knows what they want, and it’s refreshing. But that was while you were still trying to date us, and you put on a pretty good mask.

You (Republicans) had tamped down your baser tendencies to win our adoration. You had constrained your expectations to something reasonable, and most importantly, you compromised with us so that it wasn’t just the “you” show. But what happened next? You stopped listening. You got complacent with us, and you let us suffer. You set a horrible example for our child, and some part of her still clings to your poisonous manipulations, even as she’s learning better. It’s still hard for her to give up the past investment she’s made in you, Republicans.

Now I think that maybe the question here is less about how we reconcile, and more about how you reconcile, Republicans.

Because we didn’t ask to be abused. We didn’t ask for our trust to be betrayed. And we definitely didn’t ask for a pedophile protection program instead of good governance, breaking the metaphor. We wanted security, safety, and lower prices so that we could afford to eat. We got…you. You’re none of those things, though you definitely acted the part for a long time. We see through you now, and we don’t think we will ever trust you again. But you’re not our problem anymore, are you?

We don’t need you.

There’s an entire world of other political candidates out there, other lovers, who will protect us in their own way. They may not be as sexy as you in that cut, expensive suit, but they’re better in bed. Uh…maybe I took the metaphor a bit far there, but I think you get my meaning, right? We have the Democrats for one, who are looking pretty fine for the most part, but their leaders…something’s weird there, and they keep getting in their own way, even if they mean well. Still, a clumsy, unrefined lover may be the bounce-back we need. Or, if we’re talking one-off rebounds, there’s always the Green Party to fall in love with, all over again. We may end up eating nothing but tofu and insects, but they truly do care about what they say they care about.

Uh…except Jill Stein. Not sure about her.

There’s even the Libertarian party, who only seem to love money, but at least they’re honest about it, and that seems a bit refreshing given how often we’ve been lied to lately.

But let’s be honest.

The lovers that our mothers would approve of are the Social Democratic Party. Why? Because they are basically obsessed with us. They want to feed us, they want to give us nice things like environmental justice and fundamental basic rights like healthcare and control of our own bodies. If we say stop, they’ll stop. Not only that, they’re the fine, upstanding people who have a plan on how to actually deliver on those promises.

Admit it. If politics were a dating app, and you had to show a party to your parents and offer up their personality traits and attributes without the labels, it would be the Social Democratic Party that they would be holding their tongues about for fear that if they mention how awesome the party are, they would scare you away or make the Social D’s seem uncool. The Republicans are the obvious misogynists or cheats that your parents would try to steer you away from. The Green Party is like that time in college when you were experimenting. And the Libertarians are the ones who drive the nice cars and offer you a ride to school when the Republicans leave you to walk home from the kissing spot because you wouldn’t let them get to second base.

I guess I wore that analogy out.

But you get the point…um maybe. I was talking about trust and somehow got sidetracked into this allegory. The point is, if the Republicans want us back, they need to prove that they’re actually sorry about ditching us at Lover’s Lane because we wouldn’t put out…somehow…and convince us that they mean it. Given how severely they’ve hurt us, though, it may take a lifetime for many of us, including me, to overcome the betrayal. I know it’ll take me a long, long time to ever see an R by a name and think: oh, there’s a nice young party, right there. Maybe never again in my lifetime.

So get to work, Republicans. I’m not wasting more time on bringing you back to the fold, so to speak. You need to bring yourself back. Don’t call until you’ve made some serious life changes.