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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 2, 2025

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I'd take "no MAGA" as a challenge

I wouldn't. I live in an area where a disproportionate number of the pretty young women on dating apps were liberal (at least a decade ago when I was single, probably even more true now) and I have liberal friends so I never thought it was anything worth filtering out. Two things have changed my mind.

One is that my wife is more liberal than me and this causes friction, both from her being annoyed that I am not more anti-Trump (I am not MAGA and do not like Trump but I remain a conservative and push back against TDS type stuff) and us not always being on the same page for child rearing.

The second comes from a young woman I met on OKCupid. We had a first date that went well, and then at the end of the second date after I kissed her she explained that she had seen I was a conservative and she was a liberal and she was looked for a long term relationship and didn't think it would work out. In hindsight I'd say this was very mature and correct of her (though waiting until AFTER I'd wasted my money and time on the date instead of canceling beforehand was pretty shitty), but at the time it was soul crushing. She was not the prettiest girl I'd met on the apps (due to shyness, confidence issues, and not liking to drink I had better luck on the apps than IRL though if I had it to do over again I'd work to change that) but she was up there and she was definitely the one I had the most in common with. And what is very clear to me is that after our first date she liked me a lot and happily accepted the second date and then went to look at my profile again and found the dreaded right wing thought. It is one thing to be filtered out up front by by blue haired harpies with problem glasses, having something with manifest promise cut off at the knees was a gut punch.