Author’s Note: For
reasons which will quickly become clear this article will require a more
personal – and possibly polarizing – introduction than usual. Try to read all
the way to the end.
Not long after last
year’s election I read an article on Daily Kos (the leading progressive website
that I have spent the last few weeks unsubscribing from for reasons that might
become clear) in which a woman said that she had broken off relationships with
her daughter when she learned she’d voted for Trump. She admitted she had no
remaining living family and that the holidays would be difficult but she made
it clear she felt no regret for doing so. I’ve lost count of how many similar
articles I’ve read ever since 2016 (including this website) telling similar
stories of how people who say because they are inclusive in their politics they
feel an obligation to start excluding people they’ve known for decades –
friends, family, even their parents – because of their political views.
I need to be clear on
this even I though I’m sure it won’t matter to the loudest voices. I have voted
in every single election since I was eligible to vote in 1998. All of them, not
just presidential or federal but state and local. I take my responsibility as a
voter very seriously. And a vast majority of the time I have voted Democratic. I have done my
homework on every candidate to try and know where they stand on most issues.
And like the overwhelming majority of Americans I have been alarmed about the rise
of Trumpism over the past decade.
I consider myself, by
and large, a centrist though I am almost entirely in sympathy with progressives
when it comes to social values. I spent much of Trump’s first term in a state
of perpetual worry and while I’m not quite as panicked about his second I won’t
pretend the results of November’s election didn’t concern me as well. But that
doesn’t make me blind to the increasingly unpleasant and often bigoted tone
that the left has taken during that same period and which I see no sign of
abating any time soon.
I have no use for the
idea of bigotry in any form. I believe that if someone you care for – even if
they are your parents – chooses to disown you because of who you choose to love
that there is something fundamentally wrong with them. But make no mistake: if you are willing to disown
someone because of who they voted for in an election or where they get their
information, there is something fundamentally wrong with you as well. I have
always rejected the idea that any parts of a person identity should trump (and
yes I chose that word on purpose) whether or not you can have any kind of
relationship with them. And if you’re the kind of person who can openly do that
and look themselves in the mirror the next day, there’s a piece of you missing.
Consequently I believe
much of today’s politics is not so much divided among political parties or
tribes but something close to two cults. One may live in rural areas, wear red
hats and dance to YMCA, and one may be in the cities, have a more diverse membership
and conclude its meetings to Lady Gaga. But don’t kid yourself that one is any
less of a cult than the other because one has gone to better schools and can
get you into better parties: they are two sides of the same horrible coin that
differ only in degree. Both of them agree that America as it has completely
failed. One side thinks the only way to save it is to bring it, kicking and
screaming into the future. The other believes that the only way to do so is to
have it resemble the past. Both sides only believe in the vision for its own
members and think that the other side is responsible for that vision being
realized. Both sides believe the only way to realize is to commit, completely
and fully, to thee dystopian vision that they both believe in their hearts are
utopian ones, even though neither side has a concrete plan what that vision
will look like, only who they intend to keep out once they’ve built it. In both
sides the loudest voices overcome all dissent and will reject the ones who
offer even the most tepid disagreement as ‘the enemy’. Whether or not this view
is one the majority of the country the shares is irrelevant to either vision;
both are convinced that once it is realized everyone else will realize that it
is the right one.
It is in the middle of
this chaos that last year I ended up finding and essentially devouring Emily
Locker’s novel Running Mates, one of the sweetest rom-coms and most
subversive political satires I’ve read in recent years. According to the book
jacket Locker was raised in Washington DC, is trained in psychotherapy and
spent most of fourth grade persuading her friends to reenact scenes from Sweet
Valley High. I can only imagine how much trouble she had getting this book
purchased by any publisher given that it has perhaps most controversial love
story at its center – a Democratic girl falling in love with a Republican. And
not just any Republican, the son of a Republican Senator in North Carolina. At
this point it may be easier for an LGBTQ+ love story to get published in Young
Adult than Running Mates; I honestly think there are many parents who
would prefer to find their children watching porn on their phones than Sean
Hannity.
Indeed Annabelle
Morningstar, the heroine of Locker’s book, is in fact a big fan of romance
novels and given the subject matter she probably is far more open to the idea
of sex than Republicanism. She’s attending high school in Edgartown, North Carolina
(deliberately this book is set in a swing state), the child of two lesbians. One
mother, Lily, is a TV pundit who is the darling of the liberal left and loud
about how she supports the progressive cause and hates conservatives. Her other
parent, Mimi, is a surgeon who is quieter about her causes. Annabelle is a member
her high schools Liberal Liaisons and is so busy demonstrating that at the
start of the book she can’t even remember what liberal cause she and her
friends are protesting this week. “No, I do not find it all problematic that I
can’t remember what we’re protesting” she says as she struggles to remember in the
first of so many quietly hysterical lines that I know will turn off so many aspiring
liberals right from the start.
But Annabelle is worried
about other, less important things like getting into college. She can’t seem to
understand that despite all of her social causes are at this point just not enough
to get her into an Ivy League school. When she’s told her best chance might be
to try and get it on a student athlete scholarship because of her track running
skills but that she might have to cut back on her social justice tactics, she seriously
considers this ‘Sophie’s Choice’. She is less thrilled to know that the person
who must help her is Gabe Delgado.
In a plot device which
I truly hope neither liberals or conservatives actually consider a strategy for
future urban development Edgartown is divided between Easttown and Northtown:
Eastown is where all of the liberals live and Northtown where the conservatives
live. In yet another subtle digs these people are all clearly wealthy and
exclusive but both sides clearly think they are superior because of their
ideologies. You get the feeling that every house and store in the neighborhood
essentially costs the same exorbitant prices to their respective clientele and probably
personally get along bitching about the ridiculous nature of their feuds. That
will change when Annabelle faces an issue.
Annabelle’s favorite
store is The BookCourt which has been catering to her romance novel needs for
years and whose owner Mrs. Adler is one of Annabelle’s favorite people. However
when her mother makes it clear that she’s booked three employees fighting to unionize
The BookCourt she is upset because Mrs. Adler has been a family friend for
years. Tellingly her mother sees no problem with turning on Lilly even when her
daughter reminds her that she might not be able to afford it. Mimi is upset by
her wife’s vision but lets it go. Annabelle can’t as easily.
It's already difficult
enough that Zoe, the head of the Liberal Liaisons who is clearly the most
active, has demanded that all of their members boycott it. And when Annabelle
tries to explain to Zoe and her friends that she needs to prioritize college
over activism Zoe has no patience for it and tells her she has to prioritize
membership on the executive committee over her own future. Zoe is framed as ‘the
next AOC’ and like almost everyone else of Annabelle’s circle is no doubt rich
enough not to have to worry about such things as getting into the Ivy League
colleague of her choice.
Annabelle’s also
dealing with the fact that she now has to regularly hang out with Gabe and his
friend Sam who are – gag - Republicans.
Annabelle acknowledges that Gabe is physically attractive – he’s after all both
a runner and captain of the lacrosse team – but when they invite her out for
coffee after a training session and her friends show up unexpectedly, obviously
she has to run away from both of them. I mean, being seen? With a Republican?
Gabe because he is a
good guy comes to check on Annabelle later on. He admits to Annabelle that he’s
been in the same place Annabelle is with the BookCourt. He’s proud of what his
father’s accomplished and he agrees with him on most things, but sometimes its
difficult. And we learn that he’s not a fan of going to Young Republican meeting
because any time he deviates either to the left or the right of his
father’s positions, everyone makes a huge deal out of it.
As you’d expect the more
time Annabelle and Gabe spend training together, the more attracted to each
other they become. But Annabelle is constantly being challenged by her friends
to get Gabe to move on his position in a way to use him to get his father. This
leads to incredibly heated debate between the two of them in which things
constantly get loud and perhaps, inevitably, sparks start flying.
There are complications,
this is high school after all. Gabe has been in an on-again, off-again
relationship with a fellow Northsider named Caroline, who clearly is clingy but
Gabe is too nice to break things off. When Caroline learns about the friendship
(which is all it is at one point) she goes out of her way to start attacking Annabelle
on social media and eventually vandalizing her house. Annabelle is also dealing
with the difficult relationship with her best friend Mason, who is Zoe’s boyfriend
but honestly seems far too invested in Annabelle’s relationship with Gabe
beyond mere politics. As the novel progresses you get the feeling he’s agreeing
with Zoe more and more less because he’s on her side and more out of guilt for what
is clearly a lingering attraction to his best friend.
Running Mates is, it should be
mentioned, fair and balanced when it comes to treating the members of each
friend group. Zoe can be just as intense when it comes to her causes that she
frequently can be overbearing and engage in actions that do cross the line: at
one point she decides to lead a campaign to throw garbage at the houses of the
Northsiders. One of Gabe’s closest friends is Scottie, who has been using microaggression
that become increasingly racist and homophobic throughout the novel. Gabe is clearly
aware of it but Scottie happens to be the son of one of his father’s biggest
donors and he doesn’t want to rock that applecart either.
And the novel’s
clearest message is how so much in our polarized society basically becomes straw
battles for both sides to make points while disregarding everyone else. We
eventually learn the battle to unionize the Bookcourt is led by a college
student who was writing his dissertation on unions and essentially was using
the Bookcourt as his final project. When the battle begins one of Senator
Delgado’s biggest donors has him hire a conservative law firm to defend the
store in large part as a campaign strategy to use for higher office. By the
time its all over, there are protestors of every kind descending on both the Bookcourt
and the Delgado home and eventually the Bookcourt suffers immense financial losses
and the nature of its atmosphere has been tainted by the controversy.
But Running Mates actually
does something that you wouldn’t expect in any YA novel and indeed most fiction
I read today. It argues very clearly that the only way for us to move forward
in society is to listen to the other side and take it seriously. It is through
the many arguments Gabe and Annabelle have during the novel that both of them
end up doing something they wouldn’t do: question how they’ve been living their
lives.
This is perhaps
clearest in an argument between Gabe and Annabelle that occurs on their first
date. Annabelle opens up to him about her problems about college and Gabe
points out something that may be clear to an outsider but not the bubble that Zoe’s been in: that
she gets it into her head that theirs only one way to do things.
This leads to an
argument which for some reason Annabelle starts even though she knows Gabe has
a point about privilege. She calls Gabe entitled and he counters that she’s
elitist. Annabelle says: “But at least I’m aware of my privilege and I fight to
make things equal for people like me:
Gabe looks at me like I’m
from outer space. “Yeah, if you ask me, you fight in kind of a lofty way. If the
Liaisons spent less time on shit like demanding we say our preferred pronouns
at the start of every class and more time helping actual people, Edgartown
would be better off.”
I fold my arms. “Helping
people feel comfortable in their identity is extremely important!”
“I’m not saying it’s
not. People should be able to use whatever pronoun they want! But what is
stating every single class by going around the room, accomplishing?”
“It’s accomplishing
acceptance!”
“What about…I don’t
know, volunteering to feed the homeless like the Young Republicans do every Sunday?
Or finding out which janitors at our school don’t have enough to eat for
Christmas, dinner, instead of protesting Starbucks that say ‘Merry Christmas’ like
you did last year?”
“Those janitors wouldn’t
be struggling if we had a higher minimum wage! The Liaisons organized a protest
for that last May.”
“Yeah, sure, picketing
around town while chanting dumb slogans is a lot more helpful than putting an
actual hot meal in front of someone. Great logic.”
At that moment a waiter
comes up Gabe and Annabelle to tell them about how loud the two of them are
getting. That causes both of them to wonder if they actually are compatible
after all. But tellingly the last line of the chapter has Annabelle questioning
whether she has been an elitist. And when the date ends both of them are trying
to figure out whether this is a weakness or a strength and both hope it is. If
this conversation and their reaction (which naturally ends in a hot make-out
session) isn’t a teachable moment I don’t know what you’d call one.
Now while I won’t
reveal how exactly, I should mention that Gabe is equally changed by his
experience with Annabelle. Because the novel is being told solely from her
perspective we don’t know how he is changing. But in the final third of it we
do see that Gabe in ways both subtle and overt has been pushing back his ideology
as much as Annabelle has and it is entirely because of their growing bond.
Locker is not foolish
enough to argue that there is some kind of greater story behind the relationship
between Gabe and Annabelle that will solve all the world’s problems – though the
fact that by the end of the novel the Delgado’s and the Morningstar’s are not
only talking to each other but having a joint dinner is one of the most
wonderful things I’ve seen. But the epilogue suggests something that may lead to
the happiest ending I’ve seen of any love story possible when members of the
Young Republicans and the Liberal Liaisons decide to work together on a project
they can find common ground on. One of the last exchanges involves Gabe and Annabelle
looking at two of their friends and saying: “Do you think we’ve started a
trend?” And in an increasingly polarized America just that possibility is one
of the most hopeful endings I can thing of particularly after this year’s
election.
Now I should tell you
up front Running Mates doesn’t bring up MAGA or the recent election in
anyway but that doesn’t mean it’s a fantasy world at all as everyone in is more
than aware of the polarized nature of the world even beyond their high school
and small tone. Indeed one of the best jokes in the novel comes when Annabelle gets
in a race with Gabe and Sam with the winner having to donate a hundred dollars
to the organization of their choice – and Gabe picks the Heritage Foundation. This
leads to circumstances that nearly lead to Annabelle being eaten by a bear and
you get the feeling she would prefer to losing the bet.
That’s the other
reason I loved this novel: it’s the subtlest political satire possible when it
comes to how both sides view the world, including the fact that the school
newspaper is called the Red and the Blue and the fact that there was an
organized protest by the Liaison to change the names of all the high school’s
team to the least offensive option: the Blueberries. It makes it clear the
leftists on this site can be ridiculously headstrong on principles and the
conservatives are just as big on racism.
But the fact that so
much of this book is about young people trying to find a way to bridge their
divides on something that has become so fundamentally a dealbreaker that there
are people breaking off decades long relationship as a result – and finding a
way to do so - well, I’ll be honest that’s
the kind of vision that gives me more hope than a dozen Betty Albertalli novels
put together. It may be as much a pipe dream of the happy endings of the
romance novels Annabelle’s loves. But don’t people read them just because of
the hope of those endings? As we head into what will almost certainly be
another turbulent four years, I want to believe in the future in a novel like Running
Mates.
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