Love Across Political Divides, The Song Of The Truly Desperate
So, wait, 'Dharma & Greg' was a bunch of bullshit?
Last week on the internets, there was renewed discussion about kids today who prefer to avoid dating people with vastly different political beliefs. An NPR article from last May had reemerged that declared, “Majority of Gen Z swipe left on dating people with opposite political views.” (Swipe left is a reference to advanced dating technology.)
Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable to choose life partners based on political beliefs. This isn’t Red Sox vs. Yankees. Or Audra vs. Patti. Political views inform how people engage with the world. It’s one thing to have differing political views from casual acquaintances or relatives you tolerate at holidays, but we’re talking about the person with whom you share a bed and a bank account. I’d rather disagree with my life partner about the temperature to set the thermostat rather than the humanity of trans people. Sure, someone with a gambling addiction isn’t an ideal match even if they did canvass for Kamala Harris. You’re probably better off with a Trump voter who doesn’t leave half-empty lattes in the car overnight. However, there are almost 49 million registered Democrats and 32 million independents who like feeling above it all. You could probably find a partner among them who won’t blow your life savings in Vegas or make your car smell like curdled milk.
Anyway, I think it’s also overstated how many people from previous generations dated someone with drastically different political views. It’s probably more obvious now with the impact of online dating, but back in the day, screening would occur through traditional social circles and church. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy had their differences but they weren’t Dharma and Greg.
One of my favorite Cheers episodes features John Cleese as famed marriage counselor Dr. Simon Finch-Royce who correctly informs Sam (Ted Danson) and Diane (Shelley Long) that their planned marriage is inevitably doomed because they agree about nothing and have even less in common. “You two should not only not get married,” he says, “you should never see each other again.”
When Diane defiantly counters, “What about the idea that opposites attract?” Dr. Finch-Royce calls this “the song of the truly desperate … the only thing that opposites attract is divorce.” (Watch below.)
This was 40 years ago, and today’s Sam and Diane would probably have drastically different political views: Well-off, liberal arts-educated Diane would’ve voted for Harris, and working-class bar owner Sam might’ve thought Trump could lower the cost of pretzels. (The fact that slightly snobby yuppies Diane Chambers and Frasier Crane read more like modern Democrats than the rest of the Cheers gang is a larger issue in itself.)
Alas, even once cordial professional relationships have suffered during the seemingly endless Trump era. Recently, former GOP House Rep. Matt Gaetz told Tucker Carlson that Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was friendly to House Republicans prior to January 6, but after the violent attack on the Capitol, she suddenly turned cold. The known sexual predator lacks the basic empathy or human understanding to grasp that January 6 was a traumatic experience for Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats who were targets of Trump’s mob. Carlson dismisses Ocasio-Cortez as a “scared little girl,” and Gaetz calls her a “performance artist,” an insult not even supported by his previous sentence: If Ocasio-Cortez were a big fake, she could easily have maintained superficial pleasantries with coup enablers. (Watch below.)
Gaetz and other Republicans seem to think they can accuse Democrats of blatant corruption and widespread election theft, without any evidence, and Democrats should still want to hang out with them between cable news appearances. Maybe this is all a game to Gaetz, who prefers the company of girls who still play hopscotch, but as January 6 demonstrated, Republican lies have a very real impact.
Ocasio-Cortez is an attractive woman, so Gaetz might’ve imagined himself the Greg to her Dharma. The problem there is that Greg (Thomas Gibson) was an honest, upright person. His conservative background wasn’t simply an excuse for bigotry and corruption while he not-so-secretly lived like Caligula. Dharma (Jenna Elfman) is a free spirited hippie cliche. She probably isn’t even registered to vote. Ocasio-Cortez is politically engaged and no man’s manic pixie dream girl. (Tangentially, Dharma is not that unconventional, as she’s very much like her parents. Greg is the one who consistently defies his own upbringing.)
Although a common dynamic — at least in popular media — is a conservative husband and a more liberal wife, the most famous example of the reverse is perhaps James Carville and Mary Matalin. The couple met back in 1992 when Matalin was a political strategist for President George H.W. Bush’s campaign, and Carville was the lead strategist for Bill Clinton. (Carville is still living on the song royalties from “It’s The Economy Stupid.”)
Carville and Matalin’s courtship was something out of a movie, but one where you might cast Michael Keaton and Geena Davis in the starring roles. Politics probably was more fun when the white (mostly) men playing the “game” knew their own personal freedom wasn’t at risk. The stakes are much higher for members of marginalized groups.
Back in 2014, Matalin said she hoped Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016 because she thought it was good for their two daughters to see a woman running for higher office and, perhaps importantly, she thought Clinton would be easy to beat. (Watch below.)
“It never occurred to me that your love interest and politics would be a determinant in a relationship, but a majority of people don’t want to date somebody from the other party,” Matalin has said. “So a majority of people just want to, like, think like they think and be validated 24-7. I think that’s sorrowful. I don’t have to agree with him, but he makes me think.”
Carville laments, “There are tens of millions of people in the United States who don’t even know anybody from the other party.”
Of course, it’s hard to truly know someone if you don’t actually engage in what they believe. Matalin told U.S. News & World Report in 2014 that the couple don’t discus politics at home. “We have pretty vigorous and active lives. We like to fish. We like to cook. We like history. We like church. Talking about the impact of the minimum wage is just not something that is high on our list of fun things to do.” Yet, this is their actual profession. Members of rival mob families might have shared interests — especially in Sunday gravy preparation — but their larger difference might prove relevant.
The NPR article profiled a much younger version of Carville and Matalin: Penn University student Trever Keller, who voted for Kamala Harris, and his MAGA girlfriend Rhiannon Costanzo, who voted for Trump and boasted after the election that “my guy won.”
"I don’t think that you should pick and choose someone either over what party they align with or what their views are," said Costanzo. "I think it's more important to get to know the individual person and what things in their life have shaped those views."
What’s even more depressing than Costanzo’s nonsensical gibberish is that she’s currently 19 so was jut 10 when Trump first won the presidency. Someone born in 2006 can’t even claim nostalgia for the Bush or Reagan years as an excuse. This is worse than any upside-down Dharma & Greg reboot.
Part of what has made this more acute lately is Trump’s whole “the mask is off” thing. In the past, most conservative beliefs were justified as a different way to achieve the same ends as liberals wanted—oppose affirmative action not because POCs were inferior but because that system hurts them more than helps them (today Republicans just go with “if I see a black pilot I know he’s under qualified”). Oppose a liberal healthcare plan because a conservative one with market features would help more people at lower cost (now it’s just “stop giving my money to undeserving leeches”). Trump doesn’t bother trying to appeal beyond his base, so to support him now means embracing darkness.
There’s no way either Bush or Reagan would publicly call Democrats “scum”—Trump, an actual bag of scum, does this all the time. To marry a Trump supporter means marrying someone who thinks it’s ok to call you scum.
Conservative Sam Malone (pro athletes tend to be conservative, small business owners too) could get along with Diane in the Reagan years, but under Trump? She’d have to live with the fact that he backs a rapist bigot who openly dehumanizes people like her. I’d hope the Sam of that scenario would become a Never Trumper.
What people misunderstand is that forty years ago... even thirty years ago, I suppose, our political disagreements could be over political things... tax rates, business regulations, balancing the environment against human well-being... what is the best way to help poor people...
You could be conservative without being an irredeemable asshole.
Our political differences now are "should women and gay people have human rights?" "should the government try to eradicate transpeople?" "should we create a brutal, cruel police state for ethnic cleansing America of all non-white Hispanics?" "Should we impose and use the monopoly on violence to impose white Evangelical beliefs on society?" "Should we let millions of people go hungry or go without medical treatment because 'fuck them'?" "Should we let the President do whatever he wants so long as he's one of our own?"
I trust everyone can see the difference between the two, but for the more dense by choice among us, the first set of differences is political, but shares a common reality, morality, and basic understanding of American ideals, law, and democracy.
The second set of differences challenges and discards the fundamental reality, the formerly shared ethics, and the American ideals.
You can be friends with someone who thinks a 10% flat tax might be better. You can't be friends with someone who doesn't share even basic human morals.