Handling political differences and similarities while seeking relationships

[max3732]

2 hours ago, basil67 said:

I couldn't even accept the first one.   If they respect someone who I think is ^!@# (or vice verca) then there's going to be too much difference between us in terms of morals and ethics.  I'll give an example of how it would be in Aussie politics.   I'm left wing and in recent times we've had a succession of right wing leaders.  In my view:

• Abbott @#$^$%$!!!!
• Turnbull While I wouldn't vote for him, I think he's got some strong leadership qualities, he's moderate, he's calmed down the nation politically and I agree with a few of his ideas.
• Morrison #$%!!

So I could date a right wing person who's views align with Turnbull.   But if their views aligned with Abbott or Morrison, we just wouldn't be a good fit.

 

I have no idea who any of those people are, but how do you know you wouldn't be a good fit with someone whose views aligned with the 2 politicians you don't like? I went out with someone a few times who liked someone I despised and vice versa and we still agreed on more than we disagreed.

[basil67]

1 hour ago, max3732 said:

I have no idea who any of those people are, but how do you know you wouldn't be a good fit with someone whose views aligned with the 2 politicians you don't like? I went out with someone a few times who liked someone I despised and vice versa and we still agreed on more than we disagreed.

Because, for those two PMs, their platforms contain too many deal breakers.  It doesn't matter if we agree on a whole lot of other stuff, those deal breakers will still be there.    Whereas the guy in the middle may still belong to a party I don't vote for, but his stance does not contain any deal breakers for me.

Edited June 18, 2020 by basil67

[contel3]

5 hours ago, max3732 said:

I have no idea who any of those people are, but how do you know you wouldn't be a good fit with someone whose views aligned with the 2 politicians you don't like? I went out with someone a few times who liked someone I despised and vice versa and we still agreed on more than we disagreed.

I think I can answer this one. There are some politicians who say and do stuff that is so opposite to what you believe that it twists your stomach in a knot.

You can be from opposing political parties and still agree on a lot. But they will usually not vote for the guy who makes your stomach turn. One of my exes was on the opposite side of the political spectrum, but we shared similar views on the things I felt most strongly about. So it still worked in a way.

To give a personal example, I am perfectly fine with someone supporting traditional family values, but if they support someone who makes homophobic or sexist comments I just know we will not be a good fit.

 

Edited June 18, 2020 by contel3

[basil67]

Exactly.   If he supports PM who actively pushes laws which discriminate against my LGBT+ friends, he won't get a look in with me.

 

[Fletch Lives]

Generally, don't talk about politics, religion, or sex. There are tons of other things you can talk about, so talk about something that won't get you into the dog house instead.

Edited June 18, 2020 by Fletch Lives

[Ellener]

20 hours ago, d0nnivain said:

I like people who are engaged & trying to make a difference.  

I like kind people.

[CaliforniaGirl]

I'm a woman. I'm technically a Democrat but I don't vote a straight blue ticket. I almost always vote Democrat for the presidential (it's worked out that way) and am a mixed bag otherwise, I do my research. But overall I'm way more left leaning, especially in social issues.

I have literally never had trouble finding left-wing guys (if you will). In fact the right-wing guys have been the rarity. Never had this as an issue, really.

I don't think I could get serious about a conservative but again, it's just never been an issue. I've never deliberately sought "left-wing" guys, it just happened that way. similar values and style, I guess?

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, CaliforniaGirl said:

I don't think I could get serious about a conservative but again, it's just never been an issue. I've never deliberately sought "left-wing" guys, it just happened that way. similar values and style, I guess?

The latest guy I'm going to date had on his dating profile 'if you're a Trump fan I don't think we'll be on the same wavelength'. We haven't met yet, we've talked/texted about a few things but not in a debate-y right/wrong way. That's not my communication style anyway, but I want to know I can have fun with someone first not find out they're really good at arguing

( pointless anyway, I'm usually right 🤣 It's one of the most annoying things about me my husband said. I tried to be less confrontational and more understanding after hearing that )

I want to see if we can look at serious things light-heartedly in the big picture of an 'us'...I know couples aren't going to always agree. Some arguments aren't even about the bl**dy topic!

Actually I would date someone with different political views, but not a 'Trump fan' after the last couple of years. I'd see it as 'fanatic' literally, or that they can't admit when wrong.

Really actually I wouldn't date anyone who couldn't have a rational objective conversation about stuff like politics or social reform; it's been a large part of my life. 

Really really actually I have my own growing ideas about wealth, and how communism and socialism failed because they weren't about true human values but now a pandemic has inadvertently pushed us all into another renaissance where we are all going to have to share and help one another.

Glad I got that all straight! 😅 Should I call and tell him?!

And wonder if Texas Renaissance Fair will go ahead this year? It usually does despite some major challenges the last couple of decades, recession, drought, forest fires, now Covid. Going to write to them tomorrow....

[Angelle]

I wouldn't date a Trump supporter. 

[QuietRiot]

On 6/17/2020 at 6:50 PM, basil67 said:

I couldn't even accept the first one.   If they respect someone who I think is ^!@# (or vice verca) then there's going to be too much difference between us in terms of morals and ethics.  I'll give an example of how it would be in Aussie politics.   I'm left wing and in recent times we've had a succession of right wing leaders.  In my view:

• Abbott @#$^$%$!!!!
• Turnbull While I wouldn't vote for him, I think he's got some strong leadership qualities, he's moderate, he's calmed down the nation politically and I agree with a few of his ideas.
• Morrison #$%!!

So I could date a right wing person who's views align with Turnbull.   But if their views aligned with Abbott or Morrison, we just wouldn't be a good fit.

 

IT would always blow my mind how there are some women that support Trump. Men, I can get...but women? Wonder what the psychology is behind that. Does that mean, they like the whole bad boy image?

[nospam99]

Ellener said ''not a 'Trump fan' after the last couple of years. I'd see it as 'fanatic' literally, or that they can't admit when wrong. ''

At the risk of further derailing the thread, while I support the most important of Trump's national policies, many other Reps would do. Yet I assert I am not a 'fanatic' and will admit when I'm wrong. (Demonstrating I'm wrong is 'left as an exercise for the reader'. DON'T try it on the forum. That will only produce noise. The post I'm writing now is more than enough noise.) What follows is my rationale for supporting Trump. I also note blatant bias in the reporting of Trump's actions by 'almost all' (Fox excluded) of the US national media.

For my personal values AND my pocketbook, all the Dems are wrong and Trump is right on
- socializing healthcare
- immigration
- gun control
- foreign policy
- military spending
- other government spending
- abortion
- regulation of small business

With all that said, Trump has already earned my support. Socializing healthcare would have been sufficient. The other issues are just 'icing on the cake'. Yet I note that he is wrong on global warming, as are the Dems who advocate unilaterally crippling the US economy as a futile action to prevent it.

I also note he is a liar, just as much as every other politician on the left or right. His lies are more blatant. So what? My support is based on policy.

The other thing I like about him is another 'style' feature, that he fights back when an opponent, particularly a media pundit, misrepresents his actions. I WANT 'my president' to be a fighter who strikes back at bullies and (the other) liars.

[Atwood]

I agree with @d0nnivain that values are more important than party politics most of the time (though you might make a judgement on party choice based on policies of the party). 

In the UK we don't just have two parties, so it can be more varied and a lot of people aren't loyal to any parties at all and vote for whoever they think makes sense at that time. I also find that a lot of people straight up don't know what the different labels mean in comparison to their values. So someone will say "yeah I'm pretty liberal" without really knowing what it means in relation to the liberal party policies. 

As for dating, when my partner asked me on a date, I had just come out of a pretty incompatible relationship in terms of values and felt I absolutely did not want that again. So on our first few dates, probably for the first few months of our relationship really, we discussed social issues. I wanted to know his views on rape, abortion, LGBT+ rights, immigration, civil rights, homelessness, drug use, incarceration, the death penalty etc. You name it, we discussed it. We discussed abortion rights on our first date before we even had our first kiss (it was a super interesting first date). I don't think he particularly intended to ever do that himself, but he got really into discussing it immediately because he wanted to know more about me and we really wanted to put to the test our compatibility right away. Did we agree on absolutely everything? No. Did we discover we could have pretty rad, complex debates without hating each other, yes! We do pretty much match up on the stuff we consider important, but the most important thing we learned is that we can healthily disagree and that we are unafraid of those discussions. We also discussed our sexual health, preferred form of contraception and whether or not we would want to keep or abort a pregnancy about a month before we had sex for the first time. 

Maybe I got lucky and met someone extremely compatible straight away, but I would absolutely choose to always do it that way. If he told me something I could not possibly tolerate in a partner and vice versa, we would have saved ourselves some time and some heartbreak. Whilst I do think there are many people who can comfortably coexist in relationships with people they are polarised with, I'm not one of those people and I know that. My partner is the same. Especially when it comes to raising your kids, I think it's helpful to be singing from the same hymn sheet. 

[LuckyM]

Depends where you live Red or blue state and city. If you are a in a majority party. Most women I have met in my life were liberal maybe because I live in a Democrat city. Do not expect them to change their minds ever. Politics is emotional. Not as rational as people think. If your politics is very important to you then wait til you find similar partner. But may wait too long. To me it is relatively irrelevant compared to everything else

[CaliforniaGirl]

10 hours ago, nospam99 said:

Ellener said ''not a 'Trump fan' after the last couple of years. I'd see it as 'fanatic' literally, or that they can't admit when wrong. ''

At the risk of further derailing the thread, while I support the most important of Trump's national policies, many other Reps would do. Yet I assert I am not a 'fanatic' and will admit when I'm wrong. (Demonstrating I'm wrong is 'left as an exercise for the reader'. DON'T try it on the forum. That will only produce noise. The post I'm writing now is more than enough noise.) What follows is my rationale for supporting Trump. I also note blatant bias in the reporting of Trump's actions by 'almost all' (Fox excluded) of the US national media.

For my personal values AND my pocketbook, all the Dems are wrong and Trump is right on
- socializing healthcare
- immigration
- gun control
- foreign policy
- military spending
- other government spending
- abortion
- regulation of small business

With all that said, Trump has already earned my support. Socializing healthcare would have been sufficient. The other issues are just 'icing on the cake'. Yet I note that he is wrong on global warming, as are the Dems who advocate unilaterally crippling the US economy as a futile action to prevent it.

I also note he is a liar, just as much as every other politician on the left or right. His lies are more blatant. So what? My support is based on policy.

The other thing I like about him is another 'style' feature, that he fights back when an opponent, particularly a media pundit, misrepresents his actions. I WANT 'my president' to be a fighter who strikes back at bullies and (the other) liars.

See now...while I get that you're just trying to explain, a lecture like this would turn me off. I'm a grownup, I've made my decisions (or make them at each election, really) and to have positives of the other party checked off one by one would feel like my father sitting me down to explain why I was just "wrong" with my choices...even if it wasn't stated that way.

A lively discussion is one thing but having things listed, and stated in such a way as sort of "well, who could argue with this?" would turn me off because it would just sound...well, like I said, my dad, my uncles, the old days when people sat around and debated these things while we kids took off fast to go do something less boring and potentially shout-y. 😂

But again...I really haven't had to deal with this. Even the couple of times I did date someone who was of a different party and pretty vocal about it (we don't HAVE to shout it from the rooftops all the time, not that this particular poster was doing that) we didn't actually get into lists or arguments or anything. But the dates didn't work out for other reasons. We just weren't generally on the same page, I guess.

[nospam99]

@CG.

I really wouldn't waste the time of a woman I was dating to discuss politics unless she wanted to. My purpose was to counterpoint Ellener's 'fanatic' and ''can't admit when wrong' points. There are simply 'people like me' who look past Trump's pompous buffoonery to see a politician who apparently holds and definitely acts on more of 'our' values than the Obamas, Clintons, and Bidens of the world. And definitely don't get me started on Bernie, Warner, or AOC.

[CaliforniaGirl]

10 minutes ago, nospam99 said:

@CG.

I really wouldn't waste the time of a woman I was dating to discuss politics unless she wanted to. My purpose was to counterpoint Ellener's 'fanatic' and ''can't admit when wrong' points. There are simply 'people like me' who look past Trump's pompous buffoonery to see a politician who apparently holds and definitely acts on more of 'our' values than the Obamas, Clintons, and Bidens of the world. And definitely don't get me started on Bernie, Warner, or AOC.

Don't worry. I have no plans to get you started on any of them.

[nospam99]

BTW, back in '16 after Trump's surprise victory, I predicted that Elizabeth Warren would be elected president in 2020. My prediction was based on her gender, her ability to express her values in a much less offensive way than Hillary, and her not having Hillary's negative 'baggage'. I also didn't expect Trump to be as successful as he turned out to be at revitalizing the US economy. Based on having made that prediction, it's interesting to look back, mostly over the last year, to see how Warren failed to get the Democratic nomination. In spite of our choice this year being two 'old white men', I think Warren is too old to make another run in '24. Trump is the oldest person in history to become president. If Biden wins, he will break that record. If Warren had fulfilled my prediction, she would have broken the record. And, at this time, I don't see a younger politician of either party with the stature to be considered a presidential candidate in '24. Granted no one probably saw Bill Clinton or Obama coming four years ahead of time.

[Weezy1973]

@nospam99 I believe you live in New York which is traditionally more left leaning. How have you found your right of center values do in the dating realm? Do you think you would have more options if you lived somewhere different where the majority shared your views?

[nospam99]

@weezy. My subjective opinion is that my right of center values eliminate some women from my dating pool. Given the general observation that women as a group everywhere in the US lean left while men lean right, I doubt New York is a significant factor. What makes NY blue is that 'enough' men in NYC and the numerous 'college towns' also lean left.