Today my political philosophy is complex in its simplicity. I support the candidate in each race that holds the most views that I agree with, or I support the candidate that isn’t just the absolute worst. Unfortunately, in national politics, the second criteria usually take over. This philosophy puts me at odds with everyone at some point and leaves me as somewhat of a political nomad. I’ve been called a right winger, liberal, socialist, statist, fascist and libertarian nutbag all in the same day.
So as you might have guessed by now, 2016 was the absolute worst for someone like me. I found myself accused by every side of being the enemy at one point or another. I was told that “I lost my roots” and that “I had changed.” I lost a few friends and had many family disagreements simply for not towing the line.
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Being alienated was the new normal for me, but five groups took their turn hating me.
Libertarians– They hated me early and for what I thought was the oddest reason. I supported Rand Paul completely. I suppose my proclivity for pragmatism just hit a sour note with most of the “big L” crowd. Rand was running as a Republican which somehow was supposed to make him the mortal enemy of all things Libertarian and even libertarian. Look, I get it, he wasn’t a candidate for the Libertarian party so they couldn’t officially support him. However, the visceral attacks against him and his character seemed way out of line. That, in turn, led to attacks on those, like me, who supported him.
