Top 5 Groups Which Hated Me in the 2016 Elections

By J.W. Holland

For the majority of my forty years on this earth, I was a typical Republican voter. Growing up in a state that allowed straight ticket voting allowed me to vote without much research or inward reflection. Just check the red box and move along.

Over the last several years that has changed with me and changed drastically. Becoming directly involved in numerous campaigns and political organizations, showed me the dark underbelly of politics. It also made it clear to me how unclear the choices are. I began to get involved in alternative candidate campaigns and even vice-chaired a state third-party for a short period. Standing against a candidate or two of a very powerful state GOP machine will open your eyes to the seediness of what you supported.

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.

Democrats– Early they hated me for basically the same reason Libertarians hated me. Support of Rand, a Republican, meant I was an idiot and somehow a bigot. I heard it all, especially in the early months. Granted they didn’t take Rand that seriously, but I supposed they simply assumed that I would support the Republican nominee no matter who it was. In other years they might have been correct, not 2016.

Republicans– When Rand dropped out of the race I moved my support to Austin Petersen for the Libertarian Party. The “wasted vote” crowd immediately attacked. Somehow my support for Petersen was the last piece of the plan Hillary Clinton had devised to win the White House. How could I not support one of the Republican candidates? I needed to get involved in the GOP process to make sure “we” won.

Trump Supporters– As Trump picked up steam, I became a very vocal and outspoken opponent of his election. There were various reasons I put forth for why I thought he was the worst choice we could make. However as we soon learned, Trump supporters aren’t swayed by facts and reason. I found myself on the other end of the hired troll squad attacks in the comment sections more than once.

Libertarians Again– I had reserved myself to the fact of voting for Gary Johnson and had even donated to his campaign. I can’t say it was going to be the most enthusiastic vote I would ever cast, but it was what I planned to do anyway. Suddenly, however, in the midst of many Johnson slips, Arizona became a potential swing state. That left me with a tough decision to make. So I made the decision in the final days of the election to support and vote for Clinton. A year earlier I would have never considered that, yet here I was.

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My pragmatism didn’t work out so well in 2016. I am still ok with every decision I made, and that’s what is important to me. Those decisions and the results will definitely be in the front of my mind with every future race and election.

I will continue not being libertarian enough, and I will continue being a liberal, right wing, statist. Perhaps one day I will find a group that I fit in completely. Until then I will keep being my own man.

Along the way, I am sure I will find some new groups to hate me.