AsianWeek » Damnocrat: Disagreeing on Politics

Damnocrat: Disagreeing on Politics

Dear Q,
My boyfriend and I disagree on politics. It’s the only issue that we have consistently argued about during our eight-year relationship.

I’m a white guy, and he’s a Republican, assimilated Chinese American. I find it despicable that he would vote for that party, no matter the candidate — and with this election, he’s become even more inflexible.

Two weeks ago, after an argument, I hit him, half by accident, half for real. I couldn’t believe it and apologized, but he refuses to talk to me about it. We’re not breaking up, but he’s really hurt. When I asked how to make up for it, he said I have to vote Republican in the general election. Obviously, I’m not doing that, but he seems determined to punish me by making me do something fundamentally against my principles; this is all that he’ll accept as an apology.

This feels very twisted and maybe one for the gone-too-far department. What’s a good way to compromise? Believe it or not, I actually love this guy.

— A Democrat Until Death

Dear DUD,
I just don’t think gays should be Republican, not even for fiscal reasons. Dump your boyfriend. If you aren’t willing to do that, you have to stop hitting him.

Why don’t you just campaign harder for your candidate? There’s nothing that entitles your BF-(R) to stop you from being a constructive part of the national election. Under the category of agree to disagree, let him vote however he wants. And if you won’t switch parties, then it’s not fair to expect the same from him. Maybe he likes watching Republicans come out of the closet or voting against the possibility of ever marrying you.

Blackmail isn’t ever healthy in a relationship. Your BF can’t be serious about forcing your vote, but if he insists, just go into the booth and do your business. If he asks who you voted for, you can 1) lie, 2) say it’s your right to keep it confidential or 3) hit him again with full force. I just hope the make-up sex is worth all this.

Comments

I agree! Go voting and lie about it. He is not gong to know. He is kinda stupid (by forcing you to vote for McCain). But you are more stupid, by hitting the guiy you love. My white BF once hit the door and broke his wrist! He couldn’t hit me tho he would by accident. And when we made love that night I told him I’d taken the blow. He cried and glad he didn’t and he promised me not to hit anything infront me again. He hurt his wrist for months. Love hurts. Stop hitting him. Another white male friend said he cheated on his asian BF everytime when they aren’t talking…Asian guys love to be treated that way!

–QueerGam on Apr 26, 2008
well, I’d say better gay and republican if he’s going to be that way…. Maybe you could get into an intelligent discussion on the inherent problems with either Obama and Hillary, and that the way the polls are going, slightly more Americans appear to be less afraid of McCain than either Democrat, otherwise maybe it was never meant to be. Even Obama won’t support gay marriage as long as it’s called that, and nobody is sticking up for polygamy except for the far, far, far right fundamentalist Mormons and the hmong. Good luck with that whatever way you go.

–awarthurhu on Apr 26, 2008
Your boyfriend should dump you for hitting him. There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for that. He sounds like a moron to be a Republican and to be victimized.

–T. on Apr 26, 2008
Don’t kid ourselves, we do not elect the president of this country. All the media coverage and voter’s support are controlled by powerful interest groups in this country. We are nothing but ants being controlled by sound bytes. We vote because it makes us feel important to be a part of the Democratic process. Nothing to fight over. Do you really expect any drastic changes that will effect your way of life, either Democrat or Republican? Not like the Communist is on the ticket. Most of the voters will forget what the candidate of their choice promised. The candidates will conveniently forget most of the promises they made to get elected.

–Huang Fong on Apr 26, 2008
votes don’t count but beliefs do. this situation sounds pretty f’ed up to me and i seriously doubt that the issues are limited to just every four years. why do people in relationships lie ad torture each other so much! i’m playing independent, also at the voting booths!

–Sassy Girl on Apr 27, 2008
awarthurhu
Are you absotifly, posolutely AND incontrovertibly
certain the “Party” is relevant here?
It’s one thing to be “gay” in most “societies,” and the rest, if you survive, is peaches and cream otherwise.
Stick to your last, shoemaker, whatever it may be.

–Frank Eng on Apr 27, 2008
if you vote republican
you send him the wrong message
that violence makes right

–kwaninator on Apr 27, 2008
Your boyfriend sounds extremely manipulative. You should dump him and find someone who won’t attempt to blackmail you into voting for the indefensible Republican Party. Ironic that he’s Asian and yet demands that you cast your ballot for McCain, who’s a virulent racist, especially against Asians (recall his use of the epithet “gook” when describing the Vietnamese…I wonder if he had the audacity to call his captors that when he was a P.O.W. The saddest things is that some “leaders” in the virulently anti-Communist Vietnamese-American community defended him). He also steadfastly opposed making Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday a holiday. And his bellicose threats to expand the war in the Middle East by bombing Iran likewise reveal the extent to which his psyche is permeated with racism. Conservatives of color are a strange lot, in that they support people who loathe them, despite their opportunistic rhetoric of “inclusion” and “diversity.”

–Christian on Apr 28, 2008
The advice is funny because it is so wrong. I wasn’t raised to hit and lie but in this strange relationship it really does feel like the right thing to do. What about voting for Nader and nulling both of these votes :-)

–Steven Dau on Apr 30, 2008
dump his ass.

–Jack on May 08, 2008
Well, you asked how you could make up for hitting him, and he told you. So, I think either you follow through(and the pain of voting Republican will remind you not to do this again) or go to anger management to make sure you never hit him again, even “half by accident”.

–Maria on May 08, 2008
Folks:
Curiouser and ccuriouser.
And funnier and funnier.
This particular “quandary” begins to get odder and odder.
C’mon, Q, did you plant this?
Whatever, so many of us “bit,” as in “bait.”
The er, ah, “sex” and “sexuality” involved is sitcom stuff but for the “gender” AND piquancy of the “race” subtext.
Wow, if only these “primaries” and the McCoy come November were so irrelevant.
But this old occupier of an upper-balcony seat still sees real, as in reality and not the virtual kind, conundrums for one and all.
Some “insiders” still believe that this administration can still push that Iran button, check out today’s Info Clearing House, and don’t skip Jimmy Carter’s piece.
And then there’s the Counterpunch of the day, a rather ex post facto scary summation of the Rockefellers and the fact that Hitler did NOT incept his Aryans-uber-alles bit, but was inspired by the “eugenicists” who preceded and whose beliefs and policies are even more abominable than simple “genocide.”
Because they are the twisted egomaniac agenda of today’s supermensch as well.
Aside from the fact they are certifiably neither rational nor “sane,” well, at least to the “majority” of humankind, their machinations and manipulations are daunting, to say the least.
And in this upcoming “election,” where “we” get to “choose” between someone who considers Asians “gooks” and a dyed-in-the-genes “mestizo,” the foregoing becomes absolutely theatrical, as in either or both grand opera AND farce.
Whatever, read Sharon Smith’s account of “Rockefeller Family Fables” in the ICH blog.
And it will only hurt if you laugh.
Frank Eng
P.S.: And for both beater and blackmailer above, either get another ghostwriter or just stay young-at-heart and infantile in mind. And have you read either the Marquis OR grandpa Freud? Nah, never mind. Just have fun, and “vote” if you have the time or inclination.’

–Frank Eng on May 09, 2008

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