Embrace being politically homeless

 

I remember standing in the Atlanta airport the day after Election Day in 2004, watching John Kerry and John Edwards give concession speeches. I was dumbfounded that America could vote for a second George W. Bush administration. How could any thinking person cast their ballot for such a vacuous disaster as that?

George W. Bush had neither the intelligence nor the dignified manner to hold the office of president. He was tested in his first term by the enormous events of September 11, 2001 and failed miserably by falling prey to his coterie of ambitious and careless advisors. His invasion of Iraq got thousands of Americans killed needlessly; it further destabilized the Middle East and made the mullahs of Iran more powerful.

Four years later, John Kerry was not a perfect candidate, but he wasn’t George W. Bush, and that was all that mattered. The infuriating absurdity of the George W. Bush presidency was compounded tenfold by a public that took this empty suit seriously; many even thought it was some kind of patriot duty to vote for him.

So when Donald Trump won re-election earlier this month, I felt like I understood people who were morally outraged and angry at their fellow Americans. When your opposition candidate is an unqualified absurdity, a high level of moral outrage is natural. I’ve been there.

But I no longer rank among people emotionally swayed by election results. I’ve embraced political homelessness, and with that comes great freedom.

Maybe it’s a certain level of age and experience, or a knowing cynicism that has crept into my worldview, but I don’t see the world in the same black-and-white landscape of good and evil that I did in 2004.

Maybe it is my background working as a financial journalist that allows me to look at issues and policies more clinically and with a sense of emotional detachment. I’ve learned to look at what people actually do and what facts on the ground are, and pay little attention to rhetoric.

I’ve come to expect the worst from everyone and so I’m rarely surprised or disappointed. Of course, the government is going to abuse its power, it wouldn’t have attained power if they hadn’t planned on using it. I’m often saying to my friends, regardless of their political affiliation, “Your side did this too.”

So I went into the presidential election predicting that Donald Trump would win and confident that I wouldn’t be happy with either outcome. I’ve seen Democrats and Republicans sacrifice principles for political advantage repeatedly, over multiple election cycles, to the point that I know neither is capable of keeping its word or staying grounded.

But while I have lost whatever faith I had in the American political system, I have not lost faith in America. If anything, our country shows us over and over again that it is resilient and capable. America exists in a superior plane far above our wretched politics. George W. Bush and his cabinet of incompetents deserve to smolder in the ash heap of history, but the people who voted for him were mostly decent people who loved their country and felt wounded by being attacked. The Trump supporters who put him back into office have seen their grocery bills triple.

There is so much more consensus on vital issues than we’re led to believe, and in the real world, if people are able to meet on their own terms, they can build meaningful bridges with neighbors and political opponents. It’s being done on the local level around the country every day.

So, if you’ve become frustrated and disillusioned, political homelessness may be for you. It won’t cure all frustration and aggravation with American politics, but you won’t blow a head gasket when the next unqualified hot mess takes the Oval Office.

A Dog That Didn’t Hunt This Time

The most deplorable thing about the general election was the awful choices voters were handed. The wife of a former President and a shady real estate mogul best known for hosting a reality television show? There was no way the outcome could be anything less than embarrassing. Each candidate deserved to lose.

There’s not much negative about Donald Trump that he didn’t say himself. He refused to even read the news during his campaign, brushing aside the pleas of his staff that he prepare for debates or learn about the world he was asking to lead. He’s arrogant and vulgar and his life is a monument to bad taste and delusions of grandeur. He’s been wrong about almost everything. But he was right on illegal immigration and crime and America is so desperate for people to speak at least partially honestly on controversial topics that this paid big dividends at the polls.

Hillary Clinton is an intelligent person with political skills and a mastery of the law and public policy. While there’s no doubt she got to where she was in large part because she is a former first lady, she’d be a formidable candidate and no question the most qualified by experience on the ballot. No one doubted her intelligence or her skill. But her career has been marred by repeated short-sighted judgements based almost solely on political calculation. In the end Hillary Clinton outsmarted herself.

The Clinton campaign followed the conventional wisdom of American politics that says accusations of racism is the Kryptonite of Republican candidates. Anyone so shamed with that scarlet ‘R’ is supposed to meekly apologize for whatever infraction they’ve committed, and sulk off to political purgatory. Trump threw that political calculus out the window and if fortune smiles upon our republic it will be his enduring legacy.

Trump set the stage early with his stand against illegal immigration. It was considered radical and extreme because he delivered a speech with his usual bombast. But the Democrats’ year-long overreaction to Trump’s stand against illegal immigration was their biggest gift to him.

You can’t solve a problem by pretending it doesn’t exist or trying to demonize those who want to fix it, even if your opponent is an ignorant blowhard. Illegal immigration on the scale we have now suppresses wages, brings criminal aliens into the country, poses serious public health risks, and often places unfair burdens on state and local governments forced to provide higher levels of service for populations that pay little or no taxes. You would have to be a reclusive millionaire not to see first-hand some of the negative effects unchecked immigration has had on our country. Somehow the view from Trump Tower was better than that from Chappaqua.

[N.B.: The idea of building a wall to solve the immigration problem shows just how clueless Trump is. Many if not most illegal immigrants enter the U.S. legally and then overstay their visas and Mexican cartels have shown themselves extremely adept at digging tunnels.]

Instead of serious policy solutions to issues of immigration and crime, Democrats delivered pompous moral lectures and in doing so they helped hand the election to Donald Trump. While it was impossible to cast a vote for either candidate, it was fun watching the premature Clinton victory celebration dissolve into a weepy pity party.

But what Trump supporters will soon realize is that they’ve been sold a false bill of goods. Trump is no real populist, and he’s aligned himself with religious conservatives hostile to science. It’s good to no longer ignore realities that were verboten in American political discourse, but Trump has never been interested in helping working-class Americans before. He’s a snake oil salesman. His willingness to speak a few harsh truths somehow overshadowed his bulwark of lies and empty boasts. 

But the game has been changed in at least one positive way: The valid concerns of working-class Americans can no longer be shunted to the nether regions of the Internet by smearing them as “racist.” That’s the silver lining of Trump’s victory; it may be the only one.

Political enemies make the best friends

There is a popular meme being widely shared on social media. It depicts several of current crop of presidential candidates and says, “If you are voting for any of these candidates, please unfriend me now …. Just kidding. I’m not twelve.” 

It’s a funny meme and one people ought to take to heart. I learned long ago that political views and personalities are not one and the same. Just because someone agrees with you on political philosophy and public policy doesn’t mean they are agreeable people are even good people. You will find that you will completely loathe some of your own allies more than your sworn enemies. A person’s personality is not dictated by their politics.

Some of my most productive and pleasant conversations have been with people on the extremes, the outside of what is considered proper or viable political discourse. These people could speak honestly with me because they had nothing to lose. They didn’t have to put on airs to convince themselves or the world around them who they were. Their outlier status bestowed on them an easy confidence that meant they didn’t have to prove who they were or make a dramatic demonstration to establish their identity at every turn.

I have friends who span the political spectrum from far left to far right. Some of my friends would be horrified that I’m friends with communists, cops, Black Lives Matter protesters, white nationalists, transgender activists, Republicans, Democrats, Green Party activists, Libertarians, and more. I’m friends with active duty military members as well as pacifists, anti-war demonstrators as well as veterans (and some of the most fervent anti-war people I know are veterans).

I didn’t set out to cultivate friendships from every political persuasion, it just happened that way. I’ve met lots of interesting people from all walks of life. I value the friendships I’ve made along the way even though I will always disagree with many of my friends on the important issues of the day. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I don’t want to live in a world where everyone agrees with me. That would be a strange place and no fun at all. Life is better when your ideas are challenged and you are exposed to ideas on all sides. Many of the opinion writers I read are people I rarely agree with but their arguments are so well written I can’t resist. Also, how will you learn to defend your ideas unless they are challenged by worthy adversaries?

Also, human beings are complex, many-sided beings. The person who may be very conservative on one issue may be very liberal on another. No one worth knowing is a completely blank slate of ideological talking points. No one with a sound intellect can be pigeon-holed into a stereotypical ideological bracket on every matter.

There’s nothing wrong with despising someone’s ideas or speaking your mind when it’s appropriate. But trying to pick and choose your friends by an ideological litmus test will lead you to quickly paint yourself into a corner.