LOVE IS BLIND—Season Dems

Reality dating to find my moderate, policy-free soulmate

As a moderate who likes to get to the heart of what’s at stake in every election, I find radical love to be the best practice for determining what a candidate stands for. So I ask a ton of critical questions. Are they intersectionally my type? Do they bring joy? Is one of their hobbies ending hate forever? Do they hate Zionists? Can they explain that when things cost more, the cost of living goes up? And have they ever hung out with the cast from Queer Eye or promoted themselves on Drag Race? The passion it takes to join in the fun right after an assigned-female sashayed down the runway in a double-mastectomy lewk is the kind of radical love that proves someone is on the right side of history.

So I am obviously having feelings for Kamala, but because I am a moderate sometimes I second guess myself. Right now I feel like a contestant on Too Hot To Handle, totally horny for all the amazing things she’s achieved as VP, such as giving speeches and giving speeches, but also, like, imagining I could be vulnerable with her and like maybe after sitting by the pool with her for two days I might be ready to mend my philandering ways. Except now that Cori Bush has lost her primary, I can’t help my urges. It’s as if the producers have sent me on a beach date to eat chocolate covered strawberries with someone wearing just a piece of string in order to turn my eye. She would make such a good Presidential lay! I can’t stop thinking about the steamy times we could have together: two hot moderates raging under the covers against the Israel lobby.

It’s helpful when I get like this to take time out and see who the celebrities are supporting, though this isn’t always enough. I mean, there’s no one more knowledgeable than George Clooney, and it takes courage to come out as a Democrat when both the Hollywood and DC establishments are behind you. But sometimes I wish the media would ask former Too Hot contestants who they’re voting for.

I was struggling with all of this when suddenly I realized I had my reality dating show all wrong. The moment in the passage of time that broke me is the “We did it, Joe” of twinny-twinny-fo’—Kamala asking Tim Walz via unscripted FaceTime if he would be her running mate. My hormones were definitely raging to know she hadn’t chosen someone who would alienate my moderate friends in Dearborn but it went so much deeper than that. This was a real-life Love Is Blind proposal, only the radical love was two-fold.

Here were two people in two pods forming an emotional connection in which they were committing to roll the dice for anyone who loathes Trump and the weirdo faux-poor JD Vance. For the rest of us, the LIB scenario (between us and them) flips to visibility first, learn the rest later. But the devotion is no less genuine. There doesn’t need to be a policy page on their website when their optics are so on point. We don’t need to scrutinize their statistics on crime when Harris has great hair and Walz is a DILF. We don’t need to wonder what Kamalanomics will look like if Bidenomics means inflation outpacing wages and the government spending more on interest than on every sector from defense to healthcare and education. Those latter topics are easily airbrushed as the kind of caring only Democrats can do. All we need to know about our new match is fully on view. Until we test them out in the real world, it’s up to us to get to know them as superficially as possible.

We are all seeking a relationship where we can feel safe. Like lovers on LIB, we will discover we have everything common with Kamala and Tim. We are destined to learn things about them that will have us fanning our faces with our hands to stop the tears from ruining our makeup.

“Wait. You think the California taxpayers should cover trans prisoners’ sex reassignment procedures? So do I!!”

“Oh. My. God. You held off sending in the National Guard for three days so that Minneapolis could burn? I love that!”

“You’re the one who made domestic abuse and raping an unconscious person nonviolent felonies? And called it the Public Safety and Rehabilitation Act? We are like, the same person.”

“Tiiiiim, what are you doing to me? Nothing sums up my values more than letting kids run away from their parents to get their hormones and surgeries in sanctuary states. I sweaaar I’m not kidding. I have the knife emoji from your Lieutenant Governor’s Protect Trans Kids t-shirt tattooed on each of my thighs. One for the surgeries and one to kill the Moms for Liberty.”

“I don’t want to come on too strong, but meeting the woman who made theft up to $950 a misdemeanor is literally my dream come true. I didn’t think I’d ever vibe with someone the way I do with you.”

“No way. You were in China during the Tiananmen Square massacre and loved it so much you went back thirty times, including for your honeymoon? My psychic told me I was going to meet someone who gets down with the CCP!”

“I thought a lot last night about how Willie Brown got you all those board appointments you rarely showed up for, and I totally respect how you manifested that.”

“Get outta town. You set up the hotline that let people snitch on each other during lockdown? That’s so communist East Germany! I have always said that one person’s Socialist Unity Party is another person’s neighborliness.”

“I’m gonna be real with you. Setting up the bail fund for the BLM arsonists and vandals is… adorable.”

“I had to end a relationship with someone who had ethical problems with abortions in months 8 and 9. It reassures me, Tim—beyond—to know you believe health risks for the mother shouldn’t be a requirement.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who loves yellow school buses as much as I love movies.”

“Holy crap. You coached high school football? Now tell me you don’t also have a Purple Heart.”

I have such a picture of them in my head from the other side of the pod. I can imagine us just kickin’ it on weekends and always being open when the going gets tough, because honesty and trust are key.

So forget the chocolate covered strawberries and bring on the brushed-metal goblets. For our first date, we will open the windows to toast the smell of mom-and-pop shops going up in flames, exactly how Tim’s wife did in May 2020. Or we might draw a Venn diagram showing the overlap between open borders and the drop in working-class wages. Or go on a breathing workshop led by Ilhan Omar to identify our external demons. The session would end by lighting a candle in memory of our favorite moderate Ismail Haniyeh. After that we’d head to target practice and shoot up some posters of what kamalaharris.com calls the “would-be authoritarians and dictators at home.”

Radical love is about finding the one who will affirm your sassiest self. It is a journey about unburdening what has been, except when it comes to reparations—a fantasy in which the recording of the President praising you for finally following his advice gets cut to sound like he called you the governor of our dreams.

When we surrender ourselves radically, when we allow sensation to lead us by a chain to our lover’s latest offering, we learn to ask not what we can do for our country, but what everyone else can do for ourselves.

The butterflies of inclusion flutter in my stomach. On the big day, rose petals will line the polling-station aisle and spell out Representation, because who you are on the outside is all that matters. There’s no question that I’ll say “I do” at the altar. Lib moderate love is truly blind.

Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. Cute, indigenous, and knives out against parents. I love that!