Schizo Paranoid Position

Never heard of this before because IANAS (I am not a shrink). But there’s a lot to unpack here in this psychoanalysis of Arya Stark from Game of Thrones specifically about black/white thinking, life force vs death, us vs them, love and devaluation. George RR Martin is masterful in writing his characters having good and bad sides, just like we are all good and bad.

We all have to decide how much bad we can live with.

Trump is a deal breaker

I saw this tweet and added my retweet to 151,000 others:

Absolutely I would.

The story attached to this tweet is about the guy in the picture who met a woman online. They went to dinner and seemed to be having a good time until he casually mentioned he’d voted for Trump. At that point, his date said “thanks but I’m outta here”, got up and left.

The number of retweets is astounding. People feel very strongly about this, some of them saying how they’ve already distanced themselves from friends and family or are considering divorces. This section of the story gets to the point and also demonstrates the problem to people who don’t understand why voting for Trump is a non-starter:

That’s how it is for Kate Flaherty of Northern Liberties, a registered independent who voted for Hillary Clinton and said Trump is “blatantly racist” and a “misogynist.” She indicates in her dating profile that something she “thinks about a lot” is “how the hell we’ll survive Trump,” a move to deter Trump’s staunchest supporters from pursuing her. But she wishes she didn’t have to.

“I don’t like that who somebody voted for is a sign of their morality rather than just their politics,” she said. “But I think you can’t deny that’s how it is now. And I can’t look past that.”

Annie White, a Philadelphia-based dating coach and founder of Sick of Single Dating Service, said she was floored this year when a client told her dating a Trump supporter would be “a nonstarter.” Since then, she said, she’s noticed an increasing number of clients indicating political affiliation is more important now than ever.

Still, White, 30,encourages the women she coaches to work to find common ground. Even better, wait until you know each other better — perhaps the third date — to talk politics. “You don’t want to give someone a superficial data point so they paint this picture about you and eliminate you off a technicality,” she said.

No, Annie, if you’re a normal woman dating a guy who voted for a self-admitted “pussy grabber” that is NOT a technicality. It’s a leading indicator.

The 2016 election wasn’t just another vote. It was about the character of the person who thinks what Trunp stands for is in any way acceptable. If you can vote for that man, that means you have difficulty drawing the line in other areas of life where your self interest is at risk. It’s a character test. You absolutely cannot be trusted. On any matter.

No wonder the tweets are full of visceral loathing. How can you eat dinner with someone who thinks you’re a libtard, tolerates racism and Nazism because they’re not illegal and doesn’t care about climate change or depriving 9 million children of healthcare, or treating women as second class citizens or truly believes that the ultra wealthy are being persecuted by taxes? That person sticking puttanesca in his mouth might as well be covered in flies. Yeah, I’d be totally out of there. Don’t even think about staying over. Ewww, no. Don’t touch me.

{{shudder}}

It’s not an overreaction. It’s disgust.

I know some people don’t want to hear that the people they are living with have something missing in their personalities that voting for Trump exposed. But this is the reality they are living with and there are millions of people out there like them who feel the same skin crawling uneasiness about spending time with Trumpists . You’ll never change them. The best you can hope for is that Trump will become so unpopular that they will feel social pressure to put that part of themselves away out of fear of ostracism.

Political Gabfest discussed the off year elections and the reason why so many Democrats turned out this year. It comes down to decent Americans coming to the realization that they have a worldview that the Trumpers do not share and they are angry and motivated to stop this shit now.