Would you ever date a person who voted Republican?
That was the topic of conversation at a recent dinner party I attended with some friends from college. For context, I had recently ended a seven-year relationship, and I’ve spent more time on Tinder than I’d like to admit. So, for my gal pals' amusement more than anything else, I whipped out my Samsung and we spent at least an hour huddled together, swiping through pictures of NYC twentysomethings.
Eventually, we landed on the profile of a man wearing head-to-toe camo and holding a fish, which is basically “Zillenial” shorthand for “I voted for Trump.”
When I immediately recoiled in disgust, my friend asked me, “What’s wrong with dating someone who voted for Trump?” I felt like I’d been slapped. What do you mean? There are at least 80,000 reasons why voting Republican is a dealbreaker for me personally.
Exhibit A: DOGE.
In case you missed it, my colleague Julianne McShane recently reported that Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency gutted more than two dozen grants created to boost women's representation in traditionally male-dominated trades, like construction, manufacturing, and information technology. Despite President Trump's many promises to help protect women and the workforce, the move actively undermines both. As Julianne wrote:
“A lot of these programs have been designed to help women get into the pipeline of some of these male-dominated jobs, and make those jobs safer places for women to be,” said Kate Bahn, chief economist and senior vice president of research at IWPR. “Any administration [would] value programs that help overcome these barriers...This is clearly not doing that.”
I'm sure I'm not the only one who isn't surprised by these recent events. Who knew that the man who once implicitly backed the idea of replacing democracy with a "free thinking Republic" run by "high status males" would implement misogynistic thinking once Trump gave him unchecked political power?
This highlights the tangible consequences that the unchecked sexism of the GOP has wrought on people’s lives. Our political opinions aren’t just fun facts on a dating profile. This is real life.
—Arianna Coghill
