By Tim Wise on Medium.

According to a recent Axios poll, college students who consider themselves Democrats overwhelmingly reject the idea of dating or even being friends with people who voted for Trump in 2020.

And if this doesn’t restore your faith in the intelligence of young people, nothing will.

Right-wingers are screaming about it, of course, proclaiming Democrats and liberals to be intolerant bigots while they are the open-minded and ecumenical ones. After all, as the survey found, young Republicans were far more open to dating or being friends with Biden voters than the reverse.

But seriously? Rejecting Trump voters is not intolerance — it’s something else.

First, it’s always fun to hear the incels bleat about their lack of Tinder luck. Second, and let’s be clear about this: If someone won’t sleep with you because of your MAGA cap, it’s not intolerance, precious. It’s called discernment.

Intolerance is, let’s see, how do I put this?

It’s like calling for a border wall, separating desperate families at that border, or banning Muslims from entering the country.

It’s encouraging cops to beat up racial justice protesters.

It’s calling the media “the enemy of the people” so often that your fans start threatening reporters at rallies.

It’s referring to some at a rally organized entirely by Nazis, “fine people.”

Or defending the heroes of the Confederacy, which admitted its purpose was the maintenance of white supremacy and Black bondage.

It’s calling Black and brown nations “shitholes.”

It’s going to the Capitol with weapons and rope and talking about literally killing people who won’t roll over for your Emperor God. Stuff like that.

To not date you or want to hang out with you when you support that shit is called refinement. It’s protecting the gene pool.

And to say that Trumpsters’ willingness to date those who supported Biden — with his oh-so-radical infrastructure plan — means Dems should be willing to date people who support overturning elections is, um, how should I put this? …a tad bit un-parallel.

Um, you mean the one made out of shit, diesel fumes, hollow-point bullets, and hatred?
Easy. Because some people have taste, dear.

I mean, guys who stalk women are also more likely to be open to dating those women than the women would be to date their stalkers. But this has nothing to do with those men being more tolerant than the women.It’s about them being creepy and predatory.

Women drive these numbers and with good reason.

And speaking of women, it is, indeed, college women — and specifically Democratic-leaning women — who drive the numbers Axios produced.

They were far more likely than men to reject the idea of dating a voter from the other side of the aisle. But this isn’t about intolerance. It makes perfect sense.

Trump has been credibly accused of sexual assault by multiple women, has defended several other men credibly accused of the same, and has bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy.”

He’s appointed Supreme Court justices who stand poised to roll back womens’ reproductive autonomy.

Obviously, Democratic women aren’t likely to want to become romantically or sexually entangled with the kind of person who would be OK with any of that.

As Amanda Marcotte explains on Salon:

Dating and friendship aren’t about merely tolerating someone, it’s about inviting someone into your life, as a confidante or even on an intimate level. Relationships take work to maintain. Why waste that effort on someone who can’t meet the baseline requirement of seeing you or the other people in your life as full human beings?

Ultimately, as Marcotte also notes, whining about Democrats not wanting to date you or hang out is fueled by “an ugly sense of entitlement among conservatives. It’s fueled by a belief that they should be as obnoxious, cruel, and bigoted as they want, without having to pay any social penalty for it.”

Indeed, the entire uproar over so-called cancel culture is ultimately about this.

It isn’t that conservatives are paying real financial penalties for their beliefs or losing their careers, or even that the most obnoxious among them are being canceled to any genuine degree. Instead, what has the right in such high dudgeon is the idea that by expressing racist, sexist, xenophobic views, they might face pushback, condemnation, or even simply having someone swipe left on a dating app.

Trumpism is the toxin — let it go, and y’all might get laid again.

There is little to suggest this is a rejection of relationships with people because they disagree with you on marginal tax rates, agriculture subsidies, or trade policy, for instance.

This is about Trumpism. It is a rejection of the metamorphosis of an entire political party into a personality cult dominated by a racist, sexist, authoritarian.

I doubt seriously that young Democrats would have been as repelled by the average Romney or McCain voter or Bush or Dole supporter. Trump has done something to the GOP brand that has made it unacceptable to large swaths of young people.

Even though there was plenty wrong with conservatism even in its earlier iterations, a return to those and a turning from Trumpism would probably suffice to get young Republicans laid by Democrats if that’s what they’re really into.…but still, your political brand will be in trouble. That said, it probably won’t suffice to redeem their political brand.

Research has long found that political allegiances are set in place by our early 20s and rarely change once set. If 20-somethings won’t date a Republican because of their MAGA-fication, they likely won’t vote for any Republicans in years to come.

And that’s incredibly heartening news. After all, they’ll be voting for a lot longer than the aging Boomers in The Villages will be.

Remember that next time someone says America is doomed.