Poll: Young Democrats Won't Date Republicans (And Now They're Sulking)

Reprinted with permission from AlterNet

Axios has published a report that is making some Republicans furious.

“Young Dems more likely to despise the other party,” the headline reads. It doesn’t get much better for those on the right.

Fully 71 percent of Democratic college students told a Generation Lab/Axios survey that they would not date someone who voted for Donald Trump. Just 31 percent of Republicans surveyed said they would not go on a date with a Biden voter.

The same poll also found four out of 10 Democrats would not shop at or support a business of Trump voters. Just seven percent of Republicans felt the same way about Biden voters.

Three in 10 Biden voters would not work for someone who voted for Trump. Just seven percent of Trump voters felt that way about a Biden-voting boss.

Some of those on the right are bristling at the results of the poll, with one pointing to the line that talks about dating as “terrifying.”

When asked if they would be friends with someone who voted for the opposing presidential candidate, more than one in three Democrats/Biden voters (37 percent) said no. Just five percent of Trump voters said they could not be friends with a Biden voter.

“Democrats argue that modern GOP positions, spearheaded by former President Trump — are far outside of the mainstream and polite conversation,” Axios explains.

But for those on the left it goes even deeper.

“Some have expressed unyielding positions on matters of identity — including abortion, LGBTQ rights and immigration — where they argue human rights, and not just policy differences, are at stake.”

Some conservatives reacted angrily, and others used it as a tool to bash Democrats. None appeared interested in examining the actions of the right that led to the poll results, such as working to weaponize religion, and attacking abortion, same-sex marriage, voting rights, the Affordable Care Act, mask and vaccine mandates and social distancing, Black Lives Matter and the equality of people of color, the integrity of America’s electoral systems, and Democrats themselves.

Attorney and former Trump DOJ spokesperson Sarah Isgur commented on the poll by saying it “doesn’t bode well.”

Andrew Follett, a senior research analyst at the right wing Club for Growth, called the lines on dating “terrifying.”

(The Club for Growth, backed in large part by right wing anti-LGBTQ billionaire Dick Uihlein, spent $20 million “supporting 42 rightwing lawmakers who voted to invalidate” President Joe Biden’s victory, according to The Guardian.)

Former Bush 43 White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who regularly uses Twitter as a platform to attack those on the left and liberal policies, noted that when he worked on Capitol Hill he “never cared” what party his friends belonged to.

Countless others chastised those on the left, claiming as one former Maine state senator wrote, “The party of ‘tolerance?'”

Radio host Ross Kaminsky, a former board member of the climate change denying organization Heartland Institute (which for years worked to defend Big Tobacco), offered this take on the study: