Almost every day for the past year, Joe Scarborough talks about the Republican party as an existential threat to democracy. He talks about the fascist trends of his former party regularly. But now he's tut-tutting and clutching pearls over this new Axios poll that shows the majority of college Democrats go out of their way to avoid Republicans.
"A new poll finds nearly a quarter of college students say they would not be friends with someone who voted for the other presidential candidate than the one they voted for. The latest Generation Lab/Axios poll finds 71% of democrats in college would not date someone who voted for former president Donald Trump," Willie Geist said.
"Forty-one percent of Democrats would not shop at or support a business of someone who voted for the other presidential candidate. That's compared to just 7% of Republicans. Thirty-seven percent of Democrats say they would not be friends with someone from the opposite party, compared to just 5% of Republicans. Thirty percent of Democrats also said in this poll they would not work for someone who voted differently from them."
Much blather about being friends with different kinds of people, what a shame, yatta yatta yatta.
"I mean, you know, it is disheartening," Scarborough said.
"When I was in Congress, I was considered one of the more conservative people there. Sort of a fire breather. When I came in, I always went on the Democratic side. I sat down, built friendships with John Lewis, Elijah Cummings, who married us, Maxine Waters, though she didn't like to admit that. I'd built these relationships, and a crazy thing happened. There were things we agreed on."
"Bipartisan legislation. Elijah and I worked on long-term care for employees. Became law. That was just because we sat down and engaged. Willie, here, you're talking about these ideological bubbles where people won't date somebody that isn't a member of their party, they won't shop at a business? I mean, this is really crazy. And if you look at it right now, and this surprises me, it is really tilted to one side. It's the Democrats more likely to not want to be around Republicans than the other way."
Gee, Joe, do you think maybe it's the fact that Republicans are now so firmly aligned with fascist forces and the overthrow of elections? They're all for preventing women from getting abortions, but insist we shouldn't keep anyone at all from getting guns? Which party, do you think, are most heavily represented among the anti-vax, anti-mask crowd? Which party voters are more likely to be taking horse paste for covid?
Which party is making death threats on social media? Which party makes funny memes when kids are killed in school?
Democrats are the party of reason, often to my chagrin. But that's who we are. We value intellect and critical thinking.
After watching the last five years, if you've decided Republicans are the guys for you, what kind of rational Democrat would want to associate with you? I think it's a good sign that young, educated Democrats are drawing the line.
Bonus link: Amanda Marcotte explains that Dems have enough self-esteem to know not to date people who behave like rude, destructive cretins.
