Progressives have already blamed President Trump for broken relationships and a reduced libido. Now, a recent article from Mashable suggests that he’s spoiled online dating for them as well.
For these precious snowflakes, political differences can be more repulsive than passing gas on a first date, and online daters are no longer beating around the bush about their ballot choices. The online matchmaking site eHarmony has noticed a 43 percent spike in the use of political keywords since July 2016, and mentions of Donald Trump have grown exponentially since the election. The site has also noticed that female members receive 23 percent more requests when they mention “Donald Trump” in their profiles.
“There was always a rule that you shouldn’t talk about politics on a first date, but now it’s almost impossible for people not to express themselves and not know what the other person believes,” said Steve Ward, CEO of the national matchmaking firm Master Matchmakers. “People on opposite sides at this point have lost the civility of being able to agree to disagree.”
This is especially true for Democrats.
In a survey from the online dating service Coffee Meets Bagel, 82 percent of Democrats said, “It’s more important that my matches’ political views are similar to mine,” while 66 percent of independents and Republicans expressed the same sentiment. Democrats are ultimately less open to date a Republican than vice versa because, as NBC News reports, they are “traumatized by President Donald Trump.”
Over the last year, OKCupid saw a more than 50 percent increase in those who marked the question “Do you enjoy discussing politics?” as important to them. The site didn’t waste any time and added 14 political questions to its algorithm, including:
- “Do you believe we should ‘build a wall?’”
- “Do you think the left wing is guilty of perpetrating ‘Fake News’?”
- And finally, just simply: “Trump?” – to which users have responded “yes,” “no,” and even “hell, no.”
Trump has significantly reduced the number of options for online daters as matchmaking sites include him in their sophisticated algorithms. After all, how could a Hillary Clinton supporter have anything in common with a Trumper — other than maybe a mutual love for sushi and Shih Tzu’s?
Some liberals have gone so far as to abandon the online dating scene altogether due to their Trump anxiety. Dawoon Kang, co-founder and COO of Coffee Meets Bagel, reported a decrease in activity and fewer sign-ups during the election, the inauguration, and the subsequent women’s marches. These oversensitive singles simply could not cope with the additional stress of dating a complete stranger. I mean, what if he has a MAGA hat in his closet? Ew.
While these folks are blaming Trump for their miserable love life, one clever e-dater has repeatedly used Trump to his advantage on Tinder.
“Whenever I match with someone by accident and they start a conversation I just say ‘I voted for trump’, which is nicer than just deleting it,” tweeted a Tinder user named Daniel.
Well played, sir.
Brendan Pringle (@BrendanPringle) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a freelance journalist in California.
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