Latest ‘Love Is Blind’ finally gets political

Over seven seasons, contestants on “Love Is Blind” have shared difficult, sometimes deal-breaking conversations about issues like race, religion, money, birth control and abortion.

But one subject has been largely absent from conversation in the “pods,” despite being virtually unavoidable in the real world: politics. We never saw any would-be couples asking each other explicitly how they voted. And even though “Love Is Blind” premiered in 2020, at the tail end of President Trump’s divisive term in office, his name was never uttered on screen.

Then came Season 7, set in Washington, D.C.

The latest installment of the dating experiment, as the show markets itself, follows singles from the Capitol region and arrives in the final stretch of yet another contentious presidential race. It also happens to be the first season in which contestants discuss their personal political beliefs in partisan terms.

“OK, let’s start with this,” Monica Davis, a 36-year-old sales executive, asks Stephen, a 33-year-old electrician, during an early pod date. “Did you vote in the last presidential election? And the election before that?” Stephen Richardson explains that in 2016, he voted for Trump “because I didn’t like Hillary [Clinton].” But he came to “despise” the way Trump handled himself in office, and voted for now President Joe Biden in 2020.

“I will happily admit that my first vote wasn’t the most educated vote,” he tells Monica, who (briefly) becomes his fiancee, until she catches him sending racy text messages to another woman.

It’s not the only mention the former president receives in the pods. Bohdan Olinares, 36, and Marissa George, 32, both military veterans, bond over their shared liberal views. Marissa confesses that she dated a Trump supporter for three years but found that “there’s just a difference in thinking about how our society works.”

“When it comes down to it, are you gonna vote for a guy who tried to overthrow the government?” Bohdan says. “I’m never gonna agree with that.”

“I’m not gonna vote for a rapist, right?” she replies.

Marissa ultimately gets engaged to Ramses Prashad, 34, who works at a justice nonprofit and may be the most performatively woke person who has ever appeared on the show. With hair that Marissa’s brother compared to that of ’80s R&B singer El DeBarge and a wardrobe of leather pants and Coogi sweaters, Ramses also is the first person on “Love Is Blind” to quote James Baldwin or use the phrase “hammer of American imperialism” between sips from a golden goblet. When Marissa tells him that the movie “Barbie” made her realize she couldn’t be with someone who supported the patriarchy, he scoffs, “It took ‘Barbie’ to make you realize that?” He also is openly disdainful of Marissa’s military service, and tells her he’d break up with her if she reenlisted.

On one hand, this season’s political bent should not be surprising. Washington, D.C., is one of the most overwhelmingly Democratic places in the country: Biden won 93 percent of the vote there in 2020. The entire region is full of people who work in government, advocacy, lobbying and the military. And while there are no congressional staffers in the cast this season, there are numerous veterans and at least one “clean energy policy consultant,” Taylor Krause, who recently published a white paper about hydrogen.

Yet previously, it often felt like the producers of “Love Is Blind” were going out of their way to elide overtly partisan conversations, or the discussions were so vague that they were almost incomprehensible. The singles in “Love Is Blind” seem to exist in a parallel universe, curiously devoid of the intense polarization that consumes the rest of the country and compels many Americans to size up their neighbors, prospective romantic partners, athletes and favorite pop stars based on how they vote.

There have been a few coded dog whistles (e.g., Season 6’s Sarah Ann Bick, who described herself as a “patriot,” meaning “Republican”). But for the most part, viewers have been left to draw conclusions about contestants’ political leanings based on circumstantial evidence such as their social media or predilection for star-spangled clothing.

Personal is political

All of which makes Season 7, with its frank, uncomfortable discussions about the role of politics in people’s intimate lives, feel like a watershed moment for “Love Is Blind” as it finally bursts its escapist bubble. It also feels like an overdue acknowledgment of our hyperpartisan reality, particularly as we approach an election in which issues like abortion, IVF and child care will be central to how people cast their vote, especially women, who have been most affected by the fall of Roe vs. Wade and bear the brunt of child rearing. Many pundits expect that this election will feature a bigger-than-ever gender gap between women, mobilized to support Vice President Kamala Harris because of her stance on abortion, and men, drawn to Trump’s blustering machismo.

But as we see with Ramses and Marissa, there is more to being compatible than mutual disdain for Trump or a shared support for liberal ideas. The couple’s initially blissful relationship begins to fray as they return to D.C. and realize their personal values don’t necessarily align, even if their politics somewhat do.

The first signs of trouble appear when Ramses expresses reservations about Marissa’s military service — which he was aware of when they got engaged. “I don’t view politics and those types of things as something that exists in a vacuum,” he says. “These ideas, they affect real people.”

In other words, the personal is political. It’s true, especially when it comes to marriage and family, but for Ramses, it increasingly appears to be an empty, self-serving slogan. Earlier this season, he and Marissa shared a tense and infuriating conversation about birth control. (The Infuriating Conversation About Family Planning has become something of a “Love Is Blind” trope.) She says she doesn’t want to go on the pill, but he balks at the idea of using a condom during sex “because it’s not enjoyable” even though he is also adamant about not starting a family for several years. (Here’s where I ask, not for the first time: Has anyone on this show heard of an IUD?) Ramses — or at least the edited version of him we see on the show — is a hypocrite, someone who boasts that he “doesn’t try to follow traditional expectations of what masculinity should look like” and yet gives his fiancée a hard time for making choices about her body that create minor inconveniences for him.

Last week, we witnessed yet another painful fight: After Marissa apparently turns Ramses down for sex because she’s sick, exhausted and has a nasty case of PMS, he gives her a guilt trip over the lack of physical affection. He even implies he’s having second thoughts about getting married because of this single rejection. Usually bubbly and upbeat, Marissa is visibly deflated and worn down by her partner’s demands. She listens to his concerns, then counters that in the future, she may not want or be able to have sex for any number of reasons — like, for instance, if she just gave birth. “This is probably going to come up multiple times in our relationship. Is this going to be an issue for you?” she asks.

“That’s a fair question,” he replies.

It’s also one he isn’t ready to answer, because for all his liberal posturing, he still can’t quite accept his fiancee’s bodily autonomy. The “Love Is Blind” fandom has already started to turn on Ramses, slamming him as a toxic “gaslighter.” We still have a finale and a reunion to go, so Ramses has a chance to redeem himself — or at least provide some context for his cringe-inducing conversations with Marissa. But this season has already made it clear that while love may be blind, relationships are always political.