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Is Donald Trump F-ing With Your Love Life?

Treva Brandon: Politics, especially in dating, has become a lighting rod, a third rail of attraction or revulsion. Everything is supercharged, and everyone is hot and bothered.
donald trump love life

Single people, it’s been over a year since the 2017 presidential campaign, nine months since the election, and six months since the inauguration, and I’ve just gotta know: Is Trump cramping your dating style?

Are you a Republican finding it harder to hook up? Are you a Democrat getting laid left and right? Are you red-hot in a Blue state, or do you have blue balls in a Red state?

Is your dating pool getting deeper with prospects, or is your swamp getting drained?

Politics, especially in dating, has become a lighting rod, a third rail of attraction or revulsion. Everything is supercharged, and everyone is hot and bothered.

POLITICS IS SEXY!

Whether politics has made dating easier or harder is debatable, but one thing’s for sure: Donald Trump has become the new measure of compatibility. It’s not enough anymore to know someone’s age, religion, interests, marital goals, or career, you’ve got to know if they’re a Nasty Woman, a Bad Hombre, or a fellow Deplorable.

Politics, especially in dating, has become a lighting rod, a third rail of attraction or revulsion. Everything is supercharged, and everyone is hot and bothered.

In other words, you need to know where someone stands. Or, do you? Does it really matter if that cute girl on Tinder voted for Trump, or that hunk on Bumble voted for Hillary? Do you care if the man/woman of your dreams wants to make America great again?

In today’s dating world, party affiliation is either the greatest aphrodisiac, or the world’s worst allergy. It’s the difference between a match made in heaven, a relationship destined for hell, an instant turn-on, or a complete turn-off.

Swiping on a dating app is not unlike pulling a lever in a voting booth. Case in point from a real Tinder profile:

“Trump voters please swipe left, and go to your room and think about what you’ve done.”

OPPOSITES ATTRACT (except when it comes to Trump)

According to data from dating site Match.com, 60 percent of singles say they are less open to dating across party lines than two years ago. It’s even harsher among liberals, who tend to really dig in when it comes to Trump. In fact, Match found that a whopping 91 percent of liberals judge potential dates negatively if they voted for Trump. Conservatives, on the other hand, are slightly less judgmental. 57 percent said they are more likely to date across party lines.

Data from another dating app, CoffeeMeetsBagel, seems to back this up. A poll of 1,320 of its users saw that 70 percent of Democrats feel “politics are impacting their dating lives ‘slightly to profoundly,’” while only 43 Republican singles felt the same way.

Conclusion: Maybe conservatives are just hornier and don’t care which side of the aisle their dates sit.

Sometimes opposites do attract though. Take conservative commentator Mary Matalin and Democratic strategist James Carville. They’ve managed to stay married for 24 years by keeping politics out of the bedroom (or maybe by keeping it in, who knows).

Like I said, politics can be sexy!

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For the rest of us though, the political division – and resulting lack of desire from liberals and conservatives to date each othe r– is why David Goss launched TrumpSingles.com, “a regular dating site where people who are fans of Donald Trump can go and meet each other,” as it’s described.

Goss, a Trump supporter himself, saw the dating divide, and instead of bridging it, he enabled it with Trump lovers. Even though he hopes everyone will make love and not war one day, he knows full well that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

“Yeah, it goes both ways. You know, like a liberal doesn’t want to date a Nazi, and a Republican doesn’t want to date, well, a whiny snowflake, and that’s what they’re viewing each other as.”

YOU KNOW IT’S TOUGH OUT HERE FOR A DATER

My friends on both sides of the political spectrum recently shared some thoughts on love in the time of Trump:

My friend Bob, 58, describes himself as not so much a Trump lover as he was a Hillary hater, but went for Trump anyway.

Last November, he was fixed-up on a blind date, but the meeting place was an election night party (advertised as a Hillary victory party). Knowing he was going into hostile territory, he passed on the opportunity. It ended up being no big loss since a few months later, he met a fellow Trump voter, with whom he’s hot and heavy.

My friend Jill, 48, a diehard Dem, had a promising start with a guy on Match. After taking it off-line and on to the phone, they found an easy rapport. He was interesting, funny, and she was liking him more by the minute.

They had great chemistry, and talked for hours. But when the conversation turned to politics, it all went to hell. Turns out, he was a Trump supporter, and she couldn’t get past that.

“I was in shock. We lined up on so much, I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I kind of lost respect for him, and came up with excuses not to see him again. For me, it’s not about politics, it’s about values.”

*Caveat: If you’re a liberal, there’s no reason why you can’t date a Trump supporter just as long as they’re willing to call Trump out on his BS. And by BS, I mean his compulsive lying (an automatic dating disqualifier for me). Liberals also have to look at themselves when their team fucks up too. It goes both ways.

THE POLITICS OF DATING

Like David Goss of TrumpSingles.com, I too hold out hope that one day we can put aside our differences, find common ground, and sing Kumbaya. I hope one day a Repugnant can love a Libtard, and the GOP can party with the DNCC.

But I’m not getting my hopes up too soon, because as I have realized (for better or for worse) you are your politics, and politics is principle. You can’t separate them.

Daters, ask yourselves: Are we on the same page? Do my values align with his? Do my politics jibe with hers? If so, you’ve met your match. If not, well, there’s always the next Trump rally or women’s march to find what you’re looking for.

Politics might have no place in dating, but let’s be honest: it’s the fastest way to weed out the riffraff, and for that, you can thank Donald Trump.

treva hat 200

He could be the best f-ing thing that’s ever happened to your love life.

Treva Brandon Scharf
The Late Blooming Bride

The opinions expressed here are solely the author's and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the Hollywood Progressive.