What Does Politics Have to do with Love in 2024? The Run-Up

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This past weekend, my colleague Elisa Gutierrez and I met Ashley and Radia at a Hyatt Place in King of Prussia, a suburb about 30 minutes outside of downtown Philadelphia.

When we walked in, we were greeted by a big bunch of pink and red heart balloons, and a bucket of roses for $5 apiece was sitting on the counter.

We were here for a speed-dating event.

Not to participate, to be clear.

But more as a thought experiment, to explore the idea of how the political divisions that can seem so present on the campaign trail or in polling are actually playing out in people’s personal lives. We set up shop at the hotel bar.

Talking to people throughout the night, before their dates and after. And here’s what we wanted to know. If you had just a few minutes to win someone’s affection, how political would you get? And is there anything at all to be learned about national politics or the mood of the country from dating?

From “The New York Times” and for Valentine’s Day, I’m Astead Herndon, and this is “The Run-Up.”

Can you tell me your name and can you tell me what brought you here?

?) So my name is (? Samoya. ?) And what brought me here is just, I need to find love, you know. I just want someone compatible.

?) I do not want it to come up. They always say, your first date, don’t introduce your ex. Don’t talk about your ex. Don’t talk about anything of that harsh, uh, you know — yeah, we don’t want that right now.

?) Very chill, just to see how the person, you know, flows with you. I think that’s what I want to do.

?) It’s going to probably flow out maybe on the second date, and the second and a half, you know? I was actually dating somebody initially. He told me that he supported Trump. And I said — and I just completely just told him it won’t work. But then I felt like, you know what?

Maybe I need to — because I am new in this country, maybe I need to educate myself a little bit more. So I feel like I should have stayed around a little bit just to hear his perspective and to do my history, do my research, you know. Yeah.

?) I feel like I’m sorry I did. Because there’s always room for learning. And you should never really, like, cut somebody off.

(BELL RINGS)

It was funny. Our team spends so much time in political settings — at rallies and campaign events, places where people define themselves through common political beliefs. But here, it was entirely different. Politics wasn’t just in poor taste or a subject to be avoided. It was a complete turnoff.

Almost every single person we talked to said a version of the same thing. When it comes to politics and dating, they weren’t concerned about finding a partner with an identical viewpoint, but avoiding people that came off as too rigid in their thinking, be it right or left. In fact, the only automatic deal-breaker, at least to this crowd, was someone being too into politics. Can you imagine that?

(BELL RINGS)

After the break, more on love and politics with two in-house experts.

So according to a 2022 survey from Pew, 30 percent of American adults are single. And the people at our speed-dating experiment represent just one slice of those single people. First of all, they were women looking to meet men and vice versa.

Second, they were trying a very specific form of dating — meeting strangers in real life. But that’s not how most people date. Pew also found that almost half of people who are trying to meet someone are looking online.

So to understand more about how the rest of the dating universe might think about political divisions and trying to meet a match, I called two colleagues with expertise in the area — producers, I’m going to kick it off if you give me a thumbs-up. Great — to ask them specifically about some of what we heard.

Hey, I’m really excited to be here. Can we just start with some introductions? Can you tell me who you are and what you do?

I am Jess Grose. I am an opinion writer for “The New York Times.”

OK. And?

I’m Anna Martin. I’m the host of the “Modern Love” podcast from the “Times.”

Oh, I am so excited to have you both here, because we did this thing over the weekend. And me and Elisa, our colleague, went to a speed-dating event in the suburbs of Philadelphia. First, kind of personal question — have any of you all ever been speed-dating?

I have not.

Neither have I. And I feel like I should go for reporting purposes, so I’m jealous of y’all.

(LAUGHS):: I mean, to be honest with you, it was a lot of people who were talking about wanting to get out of the kind of rat race of online dating. It was a lot of people trying to switch their lens to give people a more good-faith, in-person chance. And it was kind of hopeful.

Like, I do think there is something classic about the act of trying to see someone in real life. I mean, Jess, I wanted to start with you, because part of the reason we wanted you here is, you’ve done some reporting about how our larger understanding and politics fits in with dating and relationships. It actually gave us the idea to go to speed dating in the first place. What have you been working on?

So I had seen a lot of commentary late last year about how young men were more conservative and young women were more liberal, and how that was going to destroy marriage forever in the United States. And I thought that was overblown, and I wanted to talk to people under 30 about how politics inform their dating life, and I put out a little survey in my newsletter. And I got back almost 300 responses. And I had in-depth conversations with probably 20 people, and it was really fascinating.

Well, we’re going to talk more about those conversations. But first, I wanted to know, what do we know more broadly about how Americans sort themselves romantically?

So the first thing to know, I think, about politics, kind of applicable to everything we talk about, is 80 percent of people do not care that much about politics. 20 percent, who we talk about a lot, care a lot about politics.

And so that being said, there is a thing called homophily. People like dating and marrying people like themselves. So that’s on a number of factors. That’s on attractiveness level.

That’s on ambition, education class, race, religion, all of those things. So politics is just one of those things. And it is really, really important to some people and less important to others.

That makes sense intuitively. I guess one question I have just following up is, like, well, how do we define “care” and “not care” in that 80-20? Right? Like, because 60 percent of the country — 50 percent, 60 percent vote, right? Like, how are we defining how much someone’s political identity takes up in their kind of —

So I mean, there’s not a hard and fast definition, but I think the way it’s sort of roughly defined is, do you keep up with politics every day? Do you read the news all the time? Is it something that you talk about frequently? Or are you someone who tunes in a month before the election, and then starts to care about voting, care about the whole thing? I would say that 80 percent — it’s just not coming up in their day-to-day. And in fact, for that group of people, someone being really into politics is a turnoff for them.

We’re going to get there, because that’s something that we heard over this weekend — was actually people who were saying that the most alarming thing to them is people who are kind of too into politics. Anna, in the work that you all do on “Modern Love,” how does like politics come up when someone is thinking about their own relationship and their own kind of way they’re going about love?

I would say that “Modern Love” approaches politics and love from — I’m going to take a much broader view of it. Like, I see a lot of the dynamics — the power dynamics, the financial dynamics, the dynamics of control, the dynamics of desire — that are inherent in a ton of “Modern Love” stories as inherently political dynamics. On our show, we cover romantic relationships. We cover familial relationships, friendships, your relationship with yourself. And I think that why someone feels pulled to do something or pushed to do another thing — like, I think that those decisions are political in a sort of broader, zoom-out way.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I want to ask you both, how overtly does politics come up in dating per the research and reporting you were doing? And is there any examples that we have of who’s most likely to bring it up, when they’re most likely to bring it up, or if people avoid it?

So it really is kind of all over the place. I think some people who — again, it’s very important to them — they screen. Either they’re screening in terms of context clues. So it was really funny to hear people who do a lot of online dating say, like, if they don’t put their political affiliation in their profile, I try to look at their pictures, and if they’re hunting or fishing, they’re definitely conservative. This was all women.

Right.

And I actually love the nuances of, like, the liberal man posturing. Because it was like, he’s in a coffee shop. Usually, he’s wearing a beanie. If he says he loves Taylor Swift, that was a big thing that came up. That was like —

As a pro?

As a pro. It’s saying, I am liberal and a feminist, because I am signaling to you.

I just loved it.

That’s interesting.

I could literally talk all day to people who are dating, about those sort of non-verbal context, image — like, I just love that discussion.

You’re talking about overt signaling, which — well, I don’t know how overt Taylor Swift is. I’d have to read a little bit into that one. But being very overt about their political opinions on their profile — but I think, more so, the conversations I have with people are about the gray areas like the moderate, or the, you know, I come from this area of the country, so people reading into the backstory there.

If we get to the first date, like, if we move on from the dating profile, I think we have a lot of conversations with people who are dating, who are very surprised by the person who shows up. Perhaps they had something on their profile that indicated they might lean a certain way or hold certain values, and then when the real flesh-and-blood person shows up, they’re totally different. So I think some of the more interesting conversations I’ve had on our show are where people are surprised, because the signaling indicated one way and the in-person person proved different.

What was really interesting was that the people — and again, this is not like a scientific sample, but the people I talked to who were more likely to be dating across political differences had met in person. They had not —

Totally.

That’s what I was going to say, is that even in this kind of conversation, it does seem to be clear that the type of people who are interested in sorting, who are interested in — homophily? Is that what we call it?

Homophily.

Homophily.

Again, we could be both butchering it. Like —

Right? Like, if we’re thinking about that politically, more specifically, like, the type of people who are in that 20 percent who matter, it does seem like online dating provides them an ability to sort that an in-real-life connection makes more complicated. Because, you know, the nuances of real people are just more unique, right?

Totally. Totally. Yeah.

And I think what comes up a lot in my reporting about lots of different topics is that most people — their beliefs do not neatly line up with the Democratic or Republican Party platform.

Right.

We all have a combination of beliefs that often don’t make sense when they’re all together. And I think that that’s what makes it interesting to really get in deep and ask people why they came to the decisions that they made.

Yeah, and certainly, I think that’s one thing that drew us to your reporting, is because that overlaps with how we talk to people about politics, too. Like, the idea that someone fits very neatly into a Democrat box or a Republican box, or even progressive or conservative or whatever, often takes more nuanced forms.

One thing that came up as we were talking to people over the weekend was the idea that you can separate values from politics or that what they were looking for in someone in a relationship was kind of understanding who they were. And for some people, that seemed distinct from politics, as we would put in quotes, and for some people, those two things couldn’t be separated. I wonder if that came up in your reporting, too.

It did. It came up frequently. And I think, as in many things, Donald Trump is specifically polarizing more than anything else. Because I think, especially for the women I spoke to, supporting Donald Trump, to them, signaled a baseline disrespect for women — or — I often — I also heard a lot — they felt a baseline disrespect for immigrants. If their parents were immigrants, if they came from — if they were first-generation.

So that came up a lot. But there actually was sort of a lot more flexibility around those things. Because again, it was like, OK, we disagree about this one thing. But if they explain to me how they came to this belief, and I can understand that and I think that it shows good values, then I’m OK with it.

I’m glad you brought up identity, though, because, I mean, we were obviously at a hetero speed-dating event, and at that, the way that people talked about their own gender identity was the most common form of political expression that was coming up. So when we were talking to the women who were there, there was some idea that, of course, at some point, I need to know what he thinks about women’s role in relationships —

Interesting.

— or how he views his own role in relationships, whereas the men we were talking to were kind of universally saying, I’m not bringing this up until it absolutely has to. My goal here is to make this apolitical for as long as possible.

Mm-hmm.

When you all hear that, does that surprise you?

No, it doesn’t surprise me. I am — I guess I’m a little surprised and impressed that the women were like, I need to know this early on.

Some. Some.

Yeah, some were.

True story — one time, I was on a date in Boston. I’m going to make sure every dating story I say is at least, like, five, six years old.

Like —

That’s a good rule of thumb. I should do that.

Yeah, yeah, let me make sure (INAUDIBLE) whatever. But one time, I was on a date. This is right early in my journalism career. I was a crime reporter for “The Boston Globe.” And I had, that day, been to a murder trial, because I was covering a teenager who had shot another teenager. OK. So I go on this date. And this woman asked, like, oh, what’d you do today?

And I started saying, actually, it’s really sad. I cover this stuff, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And she goes like, well, what do you think about juveniles being charged as adults? Because this child — and I was like, I’m not about to share too many, like, full opinions. I’m still in journalist mode. Like, we’re just meeting each other.

So I was like, oh, you know, it’s complicated, you know? I tried to give a very, like, middle-of-the-road answer. And she goes, I need to know what you think about prison abolition right now.

Whoa.

And I was like, oh. And she ended up actually leaving, to be honest with you. But if that would have been date two or three, I wouldn’t have answered in the same way. I probably would have answered in a more open way. So I definitely feel like the timing really matters here, too.

Well, OK, so this is one thing I haven’t mentioned yet. One of the political scientists I spoke to for the series that I did said there is a real difference between dating behavior and mating behavior, right?

Interesting.

So it’s like, are you — how serious are you right now? Like, and if you’re not that serious in your dating, I think you obviously have a much broader idea, and there’s fewer deal-breakers. But if you are looking, you’re like, I want to settle down, I’m trying to find my person, then I think things sort of ratchet up. And that brings me to my other, very strongly held belief after doing this reporting, which is that thirst outweighs politics for, like, a lot of people.

I actually totally agree with that. I completely cosign —

Like, if you want — if you’re thirsty enough, you’ll put it to the side.

Absolutely. Or you figure out a way to justify it to yourself.

Yes.

The other thing I want to throw in is, there are a lot of people who find love later in life, so either, like, post-divorce or — and I feel like this conversation has centered around younger people. I don’t know the age of the people at the speed-dating event. I would assume, like, 20s, 30s?

We went to — 5:00 to 7:00 was 20s to 30s, and 7:00 to 9:00 was 30s and 40s.

Oh, I’m so interested in hearing about that. But we have so many conversations with people who are sort of — this sounds negative, but I can’t think of another way to say it — sort of calcified in their ways of thinking or living or the way that they approach family, the way that they approach politics, certainly.

And we have a lot of very beautiful “Modern Love” stories of people being broken out of those ways because of a new love or surprised by them. But I will say, it’s like, I’d be so interested thinking about all of this through the lens of dating as a slightly older person.

Well, I can say that one thing that stuck out to me just in the people — it was the older set of women who were more comfortable saying, I want to know more quickly, like, what’s his purpose here? But I guess, like, nobody wanted to frontally mention politics at speed dating.

And the clearest thing that came through was really an aversion to the kind of explicit team-waving, you know. They did not want someone who was a mega Democrat or a mega Republican. Wariness of strong political opinions, no matter what. I guess I’m wondering, how much do you think the idea of intense politics being a red flag or a beige flag or turnoff for people is a widely held belief?

So I actually think it’s a third thing, possibly, which is just exhaustion. Like, the past eight years, let’s say, have just been so rancorous and ugly, and I think a lot of people, even who might have very strongly held beliefs, they just don’t want that anymore. It has taken too central a role in their lives and their discourse, and they’re sick of it.

What was interesting is when we met a couple people who did hold really strong beliefs, and they were very aware that it could be a turnoff to people. We’re going to play one clip of a guy talking about the importance of faith to them and how they talk about that in dating.

I have multiple thoughts. The first is, I did a series last year about people moving away from organized religion, and they’re — Based on tons of research, there is a way in which in this country, Christianity has been branded as a religion of the far right. So if you do not have those political beliefs, often, people are a little bit afraid of saying that they are a Christian, because they think it will attach them to a set of beliefs that they do not identify with.

So the other thing that I think of when I hear him talk is, when I was reporting this politics and dating series, often, couples who were split about their abortion stance shared a religious background, which was super interesting to me. I’m thinking particularly of one couple.

They were both Catholic, and they both believed that you shouldn’t have sex before marriage. Because I asked. I was like, well, as a practical matter, like, this is dangerous if you’re — and they’re like, well, we don’t — it’s moot.

Because the thing we agree on —

Yes.

— kind of, like, precedes the abortion question.

Exactly. So it’s all theoretical. And so I just thought, you know, again, it just comes back to, what is the value system that is informing the belief? And they could live with each other’s value system and how they came to being pro-choice or pro-life, and it was based in this Christian value system. And I thought that was really interesting.

Interesting. You know, another thing a person mentioned to me while there is, as a liberal-leaning person — this was a woman who was speaking — she said that she actually regretted writing off a Trump supporter she previously dated. And that came up a couple times, not necessarily just with Trump supporters specifically, but the people at this event saying that they think that in the past, in the recent kind of political past, they were too consumed with their sense of ideology and cut people off in ways that they now currently regretted.

I guess I’m — as people who are thinking about the individual ways that people make connections, like, how should I think about those feelings, alongside the things I think about all the time — the division, the polarization, the kind of macro stuff that comes up in politics a lot? Like, there is an argument here, whether it’s speed dating or do the work that you all do, that, like, once you step out of the red versus blue, we are a little more connected, or once you get into the thirst, right? Like, we’re a little more connected.

Like, do you think that stuff is true? Like, I’m kind of skeptical of that concept, like, that love conquers all, you know? But, like, am I being — am I being a jaded human here? Like, is that a real lesson of these individual connections?

I mean, I think it’s just that politics is just one part of what makes up our belief system and our value system and who we are and how it manifests. Right? So I don’t think love conquers all, but I think that for most people, their political beliefs are not the most important thing about them or not the thing that they value most about themselves.

Anna, I might let you have the last word here. Like, put the divisions in context for us. Like, in your work, where do you land on the love-conquers-all scale?

Yeah. I mean, I would love to say that it does, but I would say the more accurate — this is just my view — I would say love conquers what we want it to conquer. Like, in a lot of ways, I feel like when I have these conversations with people about the most meaningful relationships of their life, and honestly, the series of very difficult decisions that often we have to make to get to a love that lasts, like, I realize that love really is just that, which is a series of decisions.

It’s like an active thing. Love is not passive. And so I mean, now, I sound like one of those motivational speakers, but I truly believe that. I think that love conquers what we want it to conquer, because we have to make a choice.

So I really do see, to love and to be loved and to make those choices, I’m saying, is a sort of radical — in its own way — act of hope. So I’d say that, no, love does not conquer all. Yes, we can decide that it can conquer big things if we let it. And also, to love is a very hopeful — a very hopeful orientation toward the future. And I think that’s what we all should aim for. And that ends my speech, my grand, you know — thank you.

This is the best I felt about this year all year. You know? Like, I think there’s a version of this year that looks really doom and gloomy, but I’mma take your perspective, and I’mma make sure that’s not true.

Good. I hope that can help.

Thank you all for joining me today. I really appreciate it.

Oh, our pleasure.

So much fun. Thank you.

That’s too much sunshine for a show focused on politics. We should be clear, not everyone is as optimistic.

But you’re having a good time. OK. Good. Well, thank you. We appreciate it.

Thanks again to my colleagues, Jessica Grose and Anna Martin. Be sure to subscribe to Jess’s newsletter and to check out the new season of Anna’s show, “Modern Love,” which drops this week. Links to all of that on our site or in our show notes, wherever you get your podcasts.

That’s “The Run-Up” for Thursday, February 15, 2024. And now, “The Run-Down.”

On Tuesday night, Democrat Tom Suozzi defeated Republican Mazi Pilip in the special election in New York’s third congressional district.

He’ll take back a seat he once held and succeed ousted Republican Congressman George Santos.

And his victory, in a race dominated by immigration, Israel, and abortion, might give other Democrats a playbook going forward. Also —

Donald Trump is pushing for a leadership change at the Republican National Committee. On Monday, Trump called for his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, to become the co-chair of the RNC. She spoke with Sean Hannity on Tuesday.

The current RNC Chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, is expected to leave her position after South Carolina’s GOP primary later this month. And as of Sunday, during the Super Bowl —

President Biden is on TikTok.

Biden.

It’s a clear effort to connect with younger voters. But it’s also been controversial, because of the security concerns surrounding ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns TikTok. There are nine days till the South Carolina Republican primary and 264 days until the general election. We’ll see you next week.

“The Run-Up” is reported by me, Astead Herndon, and produced by Elisa Gutierrez, Caitlin O’Keefe, and Anna Foley. It’s edited by Rachel Dry, Lisa Tobin, and Frannie Carr Toth, with original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Diane Wong, Sophia Lanman, and Elisheba Ittoop.

It was mixed by Sophia Lanman and fact-checked by Caitlin Love. Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Sam Dolnick, Larissa Anderson, David Halbfinger, Maddy Masiello, Mahima Chablani, Jeffrey Miranda, and Jennifer Poyant.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? Email us at [email protected]. Or better yet, record your question using the Voice Memo app on your phone, and then send us the file. The email, again, is [email protected].

And finally, if you like the show and want to get updates on latest episodes, follow our feed wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, y’all.