The Tufts Daily Show: R.I.P. Purple: A Twenty-Sixteen Love Story

A man, a Trump supporter, and a woman, a Clinton supporter, park their cars in adjacent spots in a North Carolina hotel parking lot. On the left is a Mini Cooper with New York plates and a bumper sticker that reads, “My other car isn’t a Porsche. It’s a Por-sché.” On the right: a Ford F-150 with Alabama plates and one of those ballsack ornaments dangling from the trailer hitch. I won’t tell you which car belongs to the Democrat and which to the Republican. Instead, just go ahead and infer on your own, keeping in mind that you’re the offensive party in this situation and you should be ashamed of yourself.

Both of them are in NC for the week to help organize campaign stops for their candidate. Both know that the polls show Clinton and Trump to be neck and saggy neck, but neither understands how this could be, as everyone they know is voting the same way as they are. The Trumper wonders, “Just how much voter fraud is there?” and the Clintonite ponders, “Just how many Waffle Housesare there?”

The two get out of their cars and walk to the hotel entrance. “Voting for Trump?” asks the woman. The man wonders how she knew, briefly forgetting about his “Made in America” forehead tattoo.

“Sure am! And you?”

The Clintonite steps up onto the curb, smiles a bit too big, looks into the camera (wait, when did that camera get there?) and unleashes: “From the dawn of time --"

“Clinton it is. Got it.” He holds the door for her as she enters. She mumbles a thank you.

Later, the two run into each other at the hotel bar and get to talking. Somehow, they hit it off. Every night of the week, they return to the bar for drinks. The man even plans on inviting her to attend Thanksgiving dinner at his family home until, on their last day in North Carolina, she asks, “Could you believe Trump’s comments about groping women?”

“Oh, that was just locker room banter,” the man replies.

“Ugh, wait, I have to send you a brilliant article that will make you realize he’s a monster! It’s called ‘471 GIFs That Perfectly Encapsulate How I Feel About Trump’s Comments and Also Other Things and Look at These Mozzarella Sticks.’”

He freezes for a moment, offended. “Wait a minute. Did you just say ‘GIF’ and pronounce it like the peanut butter?”

“Of course. That’s how their creator says it’s pronounced,” she responds.

“I don’t care if 97 percent of scientists say it’s pronounced JIF. That’s a pile of lamestream jarbage. It’s clearly GIF.”

She is taken aback. “You ignorant fool! Are you crazy? You can’t just make stuff up and say it like it’s true! This isn’t a 2016 presidential debate.”

“You know what? They were right about liberals being snobs! Why don’t you just jet the hell out of here?”

And so she does. Out the bar and back home, to what is soon to be the Northern Union. And just like that, the country's last hope of party reconciliation dies. R.I.P. Purple.