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.
