Politically Homeless - Not The One Who's Changed

Real people, real letters, real problems, no solutions.

Politics these days have become so divided and divisive that it’s become the norm to view the other side of the aisle as “the enemy”. People are being told to “pick a side” and that there’s no room for middle ground. We here at Phetasy believe that there are a lot more people in the middle than politicians and the media would have us believe.

We’re collecting stories from the ever growing number of people who are finding themselves Politically Homeless and posting them here on Substack. If you have moved from conservative to liberal, or liberal to conservative, if you feel you’ve stayed in the same place and your party has swerved drastically away from you, if you had a moment that awakened you to the insanity and hypocrisy on both sides, if you keep your mouth shut anytime a political topic comes up because you’re afraid your opinion will cause you to lose friends or your job, you’re not as alone as you might think.

Our goal is to shine a light on people’s earnest, individual experiences and show them they’re not alone.

Some letters have been edited for clarity and brevity. If you’re politically homeless and would like to share your story, please email us at iampoliticallyhomeless@gmail.com. All submissions will remain anonymous.

Letter 30:

August 18th, 2019

Dear Bridget,

I'm an academic librarian with a PhD in the Humanities, so until 2016 I had always considered myself very conservative (librarians are even more leftist than Humanities faculty). As someone politically on the outside in my day-to-day life, having a "home" of sorts in the Republican party was a part of my identity, even when they annoyed me by being too pro-government (when it suits them) or too pro-religion. When I saw the intersectional and anti-racist movements beginning to pick up in academia, and saw people seemingly overnight come to believe that "of course there are more than two genders" etc., I could have a good laugh imagining that they plugged into some sort of giant mainframe every night so they could be told what to believe.

And then Trump happened and I saw it happen to the (nominal) right too. And I felt like everyone else in the world (save a couple random opinion writers I read) had taken a crazy pill in supporting Trump to the point of excluding Republicans who weren't all in for him. Overnight, it seemed, people whose opinions I'd once respected were throwing it all over simply to get a win. Even my mother is now convinced I'm a "liberal" simply because I don't support Trump. Which is absurd - it's not my opinions or outlook that have changed.

So now, not only do I have to keep my mouth shut at work (lest I lose my job for not being sufficiently "anti-racist" - and I mean that in the Critical Race Theory sense), but I can't even have the catharsis of speaking with my immediate family, since they are all Trump supporters.

I take that back: I have one family member left to talk to, my sister (to whom I sent your article). She's a devout Catholic with six kids (whose husband loves Trump), I'm a single woman in my forties with no kids who doesn't practice a religion. We grew up in a non-religious, but politically conservative, family. And now she and I are feeling like two lost souls in a sea of insanity!

One of the few positive things I've gotten from losing my political "home" is that I've come to see myself in a much more civil libertarian light than I used to. There are some issues where sane Conservatives and sane Liberals ought to be able to find some common ground, such as reforming qualified immunity and license reform. The two sides might come at the issues for different reasons, but if enough people can put aside the crazies, I feel like there is at least some hope for future reconciliation.

This ended up rather longer than I'd intended. Sorry about that! But the article really did resonate.

Sincerely,

Politically Homeless

Some letters have been edited for clarity and brevity. If you'd like to share your story, email us at iampoliticallyhomeless@gmail.com. All submissions will remain anonymous.