Embrace being politically homeless
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.
Our Divided City
As we head into the holidays, New York is a city divided. It has always been a place of vigorous debate and contested policies, but the latest controversy over race and policing has dialed up the vitriol and indicates a further departure from civilized debate.
The past summer Eric Garner, a black man on Staten Island died in police custody after being arrested for selling loose cigarettes. A video of his arrest and scuffle with police was widely broadcast. A grand jury declined to indict the police involved in his arrest and the finding was met with instant and widespread protests throughout the city.
Some of my friends are out on the streets getting arrested or leading protests against the police. Some of my friends are in law enforcement or are retired cops who question the motives and the tactics of the protesters.
The Eric Garner grand jury findings came only a few days after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri declined to indict a white police officer for the shooting of a black teenager there. In Missouri, the grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer in the shooting of Michael Brown has resulted in several nights of looting and rioting and at least one blatant and under-reported racial killing.
The question is whether protests are going to hobble travel too much. The police are determined not to let that happen, but when thousands and thousands of people take to the streets at once, it’s usually the best the cops can do to try to steer them in a direction that doesn’t clog things up too much.
New York has had its race riots in the past but is less likely to have them today despite being one of the many epicenters in the country for racial disharmony. While we have the same constant churn of racial and ethnic distrust and ill will as the rest of the country, we don’t have the critical mass of complete hopelessness and depravity in large areas that usually act as a crucible for riots. And while our population of professional protesters helps promote a climate of racial grievance, it also knows it has to keep things from getting too violent if it wants to stay in business.
There used to be a gentlemen’s agreement between police and protesters. Years ago, protesters would sometimes block streets or buildings and get arrested. They wouldn’t get too aggressive and the police in turn would process their arrests on the spot and then let them go. Under Giuliani that changed. Police started putting protesters through the system, which can often mean a night in jail or at least several long hours in a police holding cell. Mayor Bloomberg generally kept to those policies.
I urge protesters not to attempt to stop the subways and busses from running; however just you think your cause is, when you throw a monkey wrench into the fragile works of the New York City mass transit system, you are playing with fire. Hell hath no fury like a New York City commuter purposely delayed.
The protests will continue and no minds will be changed by them. The divisions that existed before these latest incidents will remain and people’s views will only be intensified by what they see as the excesses or the ignorance of the opposition.
Matthew Sheahan 
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