A thirty-something I know, call her Anna, has what is arguably the worst job in the entire internet industry: she investigates complaints from subscribers on dating sites. For example, John T. Stud creates a dating profile giving the impression that he is as good looking as Idris Elba, wealthy as a Saudi prince, and intelligent as Leonardo da Vinci. Jane Wholesome is looking for love, finds Stud’s profile, and makes a first date with him at his favorite restaurant—an intimate tapas bar in Bethesda’s Woodmont Triangle.
She arrives at the address, and realizes what she was led to believe is quite different from what is real.
Jane files a complaint with the dating site, and Anna does an investigation. She confirms Jane’s complaint, closes Stud’s account, and applies security measures to ensure he can no longer open accounts under fake names.
Not all complaints are justified. For example, were I to register with a dating site, I may honestly neglect to reveal that I like my coffee strong and black. Jane and I go on that first date, she sees me order my favorite coffee, and is appalled. She files a complaint saying I didn’t reveal my coffee preference. Anna determines that Jane’s complaint does not embody a violation, and closes the complaint with no action.
I imagine that most readers of Clean Slate MoCo are quite tuned in to political matters national and local, but (fortunately) not everyone is. As a result, on the dating sites there are a whole lot of people who (unfortunately) do not vote at all, and it’s not a deal breaker if the counterparty on a date votes for Trump or Harris, Hogan or Alsobrooks.
I bring all this up because Anna, back in 2020, observed that there was an uptick in subscribers demanding that a date’s account be revoked because of voter preference. (That year saw the big contest between Biden and Trump.) By far the number of such complaints and the associated histrionics were from Democrats, reflecting exactly the judgments we hear from Kristin Mink and Laura Stewart. Anna was astonished at the tone, prejudice, and anger in those complaints.
Anna was once a fourth-generation Democrat, and she is one no longer.
