Politically Homeless Contingent Is Growing

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 43:

5/25/23

Hi,

I'm a newish subscriber to your substack and I have to say I LOVE that you are taking the time to highlight the "politically homeless" contingent that seems to be growing in the USA. Below is my submission. For context, I grew up in family very active in Democratic politics, in a deep blue state. Thank you!

As a younger millennial, my experience attending a super liberal college where very few conservative ideas were ever presented as valid is not exactly an anomaly. As others have much more publicly pointed out, going along to get along in these situations is preferable to social suicide, so that's what I did. It wasn't that hard anyway. I agreed with most everything I was hearing or seeing at school so I just ignored the part of me that wanted to challenge the few things I didn't. 

My first job out of college saw me up close and personal with the way medical devices are manufactured and approved for use in this country. More than anything it taught me that we should be skeptical of the US pharmaceutical industry, especially as women. I found it easy to tie this back to my Democratic politics, too. For-profit medicine is of course going to do whatever it takes to make money, even at the expense of patient welfare. Democrats have been saying that forever as part of the push to adopt a more affordable healthcare model in this country - something I still ardently support. 

Fast forwarding to the pandemic and the race to bring vaccines to market, and all of a sudden, if anyone on the left heard you utter even a word of skepticism about "the science", you were deemed an anti-vaxxer. The way so many people in America on both sides of the aisle have decided that we do not need to think critically about anything in this country is mind-blowing to me. 

I was a politics major in college, where political theory was a required field for all majors to study. The past few years in America have reminded me constantly of the time in class that we were discussing America's lack of intellectualism in comparison with the many European countries who originally colonized this continent. In America, there's a certain badge of honor that comes with NOT knowing too many things. I think this comes from a good place originally - arguably our country's best leader, Abraham Lincoln, had a formal education so limited, he had to teach himself to read - but the internet has taken it too far. This is the crux of my issue with American politics today.

I am not going to entertain the absolutely unhinged conspiracy theories about the pandemic the right can't seem to drop, but the left doesn't offer much of an alternative either. The amount of times I've had to point out to leftist friends that they didn't know all the details before they started running their mouths about something on social media in the past few years is wild. Most of the time they even admit they didn't even read beyond a clickbait-y headline before they re-shared to Facebook or tweeted about [insert social issue du jour here]. 

I remember when the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict came down right before Thanksgiving 2021. Personally, I didn't agree with anything he did, but if you recall, the burden of proof in this country is to determine whether someone is guilty BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. If you keep that in mind, I believe the verdict in that trial was fair and correct, the same way I found the verdict against the white men charged with killing Ahmaud Arbery that came down that same week to be fair and correct too. Plenty of leftist friends though were parroting completely untrue talking points about the Rittenhouse case they'd picked up from other people they already agreed with. It was insane to see. Anything to prove you're not a Republican, I guess. Even if it costs all your credibility. 

I've found myself gravitating toward the political middle, because no side is doing anything to make me want to support them these days. I care about this country a lot - something else I feel is easier to express now that I've shed the leftist label - but I don't see too many politicians these days who seem to feel the same. I don't believe in not voting, but at the same time, I no longer know who to vote for. Part of me wonders if we'd fare better with a multi-party democracy, but my academic focus in college was actually on British politics, and things don't seem much better there at the minute either. 

I'm grateful that this column's main goal seems to be bringing people who feel politically homeless together in some way. Maybe we just need to show each other that even though we may be floundering, we do have some form of consensus on some of the bigger issues. After that, perhaps we can band together to do something about the state of the political divide in this country today. 

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.