Navigating Political Homelessness and Finding Common Ground

How Political Purity and Division Have Shaped Our Current Landscape

When Trump won the first time—and, listen, here’s a thing I’ll say: I’ve made a ton of video content lately, and I’m always very careful to address him as President-elect Trump because I think, sure, for respect of the office, I do believe in that, but I think it’s important, too, to take the tiniest step toward building solidarity with each other, proper titles and names are a small gesture of respect. I don’t mean an entire analysis by this point, but I do share that I am mindful to perform it. President-elect Trump. The people voted, and while not a landslide, a majority.

When that man won the presidency in 2016, I was active on Twitter. The pre-Musk golden era of Twitter. We had community, a monthly brain tumor chat, breaking news, often faster than mainstream media, and the bots had not taken over. I tweeted some thread about accepting the election results and turning toward respectful behavior with our neighbors, regardless of who they voted for.

Man, I was slaughtered online.

My peers on the left had me for lunch. “It’s not safe for us to be neighborly if we’re trans and our neighbors voted for Trump!”

This was my first experience of being internet-shamed.

Interestingly enough, this white leftist purity culture showed up again after October 7. If you were to refer to the events of Israel and Palestine as anything other than genocide, you were publicly shamed.

I’ve read this political analysis and that about the influence this white, leftist inernet community had on the election, and opinions are mixed. One thing is for sure, it didn’t help Vice President Harris’s campaign that leftist TikTok encouraged people not to vote and accused VP Harris of committing genocide.

I’m not here to make enemies.

Though, I’m frustrated and hurt. And angry.

What many of us learned in the aftermath of the General is that for all the campus protests and pro-Palestinian marches, which is good and just work, that is right to go on, in the wake of that, we are left with President-elect Trump.

“You vote for the conditions under which you want to be organizing” is a phrase I picked up through the Zionist, anti-Zionist, antisemitic, Islamaphobic season of genocide and General Election.

Fault lines through the left and fault lines through the Jewish community left us split in pieces before the Republicans in the House started to call criticism of Israel “antisemitism.” It is not.

The truth out here is that we’re all broken. All of us. We’re broken.

Red and Blue.

Conservative, Progressive.

We were so damned eager to get past the Pandemic that nobody thought to mourn it.

Like, what, a million fucking people died? Jesus.

I see pictures from a couple of years ago when we had masks in our hands when we smiled for the picture, and I remember how surreal it all was—but also normal. We checked our pockets before we headed out the door: phone, keys, wallet, and mask.

Covid tests in our medicine cabinet. Sticking those swabs up our noses before we went to a wedding reception or birthday party.

We’ve been through it, y’all. It’s okay to take a beat and appreciate it.

We didn’t do each other any favors. I feel like we’re still in a fight about masking, and ain’t none of us doing it anymore! I stand in line at the deli, and I step over a scuffed “Stand Here - Social Distancing” decal, and a part of me is right back there.

We gave up on seeing each other as people with questions, opinions, values, and priorities. Instead, we saw each other as who is locked down and who is out to eat.

Broken.

The loss of life, the loss of community.

Man, this week they voted in some old dude with a recent cancer diagnosis over AOC, and that’s gotta be the last straw for anyone still holding out hope for the Dems.

If the purity left attacked us, the establishment Dems let us take the fall. They weren’t coming to our defense to raise even the question that maybe what Netanyahu and his administration were doing was, perhaps, and I don’t mean to use jargon: totally fucked. We tried to make a case for Harris only to get daily abuse for “genocide sympathizing,” and y’all Dems didn’t even let a member of the Uncommitted Movement speak at the Convention. We tried to have your back online, and while the Harris/Walz camo hats were trending, we were taking abuse from the left and the right.

Man, I don’t want to go to jail for you ever again.

Most of us on the left are without a political home right now.

I guess what I’m shouting out to Trump supporters is that we gotta have a chat.

I’ll start here. I know you guys like alpha, and I gotta get it off my chest. I’ve been fair so far, so keep reading. Your dude is a fucking mess. Like, you don’t have to admit it to me, and you don’t have to say shit to your friends, but next trip to the garage fridge for a beer, think on this motherfucker. Guilty of sexual assault, alleged sexual assault by 28 total women, guilty of tax fraud, guilty of hush money, trying to grift you on Trump Wine, Trump Steaks, Trump University, Trump Shoes, NFTs, trading cards, Trump coins. Fucking Bibles! The man is selling you Bibles! Come on, my brother. You know this dude is a trainwreck.

You can hear dude on that Access Hollywood tape talking about grabbing women. If you’re a dad to a daughter especially, like damn. I’m a dad to three boys, so I can’t claim to know, so it’s your call, but yuck, I can’t imagine hearing that tape as a dad to a daughter.

This was all to say that I suspect a lot of Republicans are feeling politically homeless, too. I’ve spoken with a few.

Here’s why I think we’re all emotionally and spiritually broken, and all of us, without a party that represents us. I think we’ve been baited into a lot of this.

It’s the money. It’s the corporations. Billionaires. The owning class that monopolizes industry while they tell us that healthcare for all is socialism. They collect the dollars we make for them, then they invest and play the market with our home mortgages, and life insurance, and pensions on the line. They close factories and outsource labor. As a kid I remember riding in the backseat to both my late grandparents’ cities, Terre Haute and Muncie. After you get off the interstate, both cities, it’s just closed-down plants. I ride with Whit downtown for a doc appointment, and it’s closed down plants. I take a road trip with my boy to a concert in Detroit, and it’s closed down plants.

They convinced us that the government should be run like a business, but they didn’t keep open the businesses they were running when their workers needed it.

Government is for the public good.

And we are the public.

Broken and frustrated.

Change is possible.

We have to see each other again. Admit our brokenness, our frustration. And see that my socialist ass and your Trump ass both put our goddamn kids on the same school bus that we’re both paying for with our property taxes, and we’re going to clang glass bottles later with our mittens and breath showing in the Midwest winter when we meet in the driveway for beers.

The capitalist class has fleeced us for too long. Let’s find that working class solidarity and stop giving a shit what $400 billion net worth Elon Musk or RFK Jr or Linda McMahon or freaking Dr. Oz have to say. The shit do they know about our lives anyway?

For real.

My dad dropped me off in front of Marsh when I was barely 15, so I could sack groceries for $4.25/hr. And I’m supposed to believe that Elon Musk will look out for me. L O freaking L.

It’s us, fam. Nobody's saving us. The billionaires are taking over. But back against the wall is always when we show up. We’re the snot noses and football in the Fall, we’re shoveling out each other’s cars in late January, and we’re in shorts when it hits 40 degrees. We’re way beyond what ballot you dropped in the box. Them dudes is trying to give their rich buds a tax break so we can pay more and get less. They're trying to cut Social Security and Medicare, which is our freaking money that we’ve paid into! Me, since that shitty bag boy job 27 years ago. It’s us, the working class, that need to rally. They have the power and wealth, but we have the numbers, and together, we’re strong. Who’s bringing bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers to the tailgate?

Hey, but if we come here, don’t fuck with my Obama coffee table book.