Dear Jane,
I have a big problem. A few years ago I started dating this great, funny, handsome guy. We moved in together a couple years ago and have since had a nice, happy and generally OK life going on. He’s 35 and I’m 31 so it felt good to be on “serious relationship” footing.
But since last fall, there’s been a rapidly growing elephant in our apartment. He likes Trump. He likes Trump in a way that is killing me. He’s started to use the rhetoric of the people I generally can’t stand. Almost no day goes past that I don’t hear some “lib-tard,” “radical Islam,” “social justice warrior” garbage. At first it seemed like he was joking and the shift didn’t really fit into the rest of his personality or ideals so I was able to see it as a misguided interest or poor satire. But now I know he isn’t joking. We argue about this all the time and his debate style is to talk over and belittle me. I can see we are both just further entrenching our views.
Do I have to break up with him? If I were talking to a friend, I would tell her to break up with him. I don’t know what to do. I want to find the person who told me he thought “everyone should be a feminist” on our second date. Can that happen? I feel like breaking up would mean blowing up my life.
Thanks Jane!
Alt-Right’s Not All Right
Dear ARNAR,
Blow up your life! Fuck it. It’ll be hard, but you’ve been putting up with this gnarly shit for almost a year, so I’m sure you’ll make it out okay.
Here’s the thing: A lot of people voted for Trump and are watching what’s happening and they love it. And, unfortunately, some of those folks have big dicks that work nicely and sweet apartments and great relationships with their moms and can seem like kind folks who will come around someday, hopefully, probably not, but who cares because we hate them with all of our guts. I’m not going to tell you to break up with your boyfriend because he’s alt-right. You need to dump him because he’s a bigot.
According to Webster, a bigot is someone who is “obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his own opinions.” Ignoring all the dumb shit your dude is into right now, the fact that he talks over you and belittles you is enough grounds for ending the relationship. There is no relationship. That’s not “relating,” you know what I mean? Relationships are about connection, and sometimes rifts and repairs, but he’s clearly not interested in any of that. My guess is he’s always been this way, even when he was pretending to share your political views. We all present ourselves in the beginning of our relationships in the light we believe our desired partner will find most appealing. So he said a thing about feminism, and maybe at the time he meant it? But he probably didn’t want to have a discussion about it; not then and not now. He doesn’t want to have an active, meaningful discourse with you. Why would you want to be with someone who doesn’t want to talk to you about super important stuff? Over time, life just naturally gets harder in a lot of ways. Imagine what this guy will be like if you ever get into financial trouble or have a child with special needs or one of you gets cancer, which is, like, pretty much guaranteed. He will be a piece of shit with dumb opinions and he won’t listen to anything you have to say.