A lot of people call themselves “politically homeless.” Often this phrase is uttered or tweeted in sadness — a lamentation that one’s former political home no longer feels like home. Ronald Reagan famously said “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.” While Reagan then joined the Republican Party, the politically homeless don’t feel the alternative parties are a fitting home for them.
But there’s an unstated premise there that should be questioned: Should normal people feel like any political party is any sort of “home?”
This is a particularly interesting question to for religious people.
Don’t get me wrong: Humans need to belong to things. We need connections, friends, mentors, customs, rituals, and a human-level safety-net. I wrote a book about that a few years ago.
I also dislike it when folks use “tribalism” as a negative, because humans are tribal by nature. The tribe is our fitting habitat.
But some tribes are good for us, others are neutral, and others are harmful. American political parties, historically, have been real social hubs on the local level. The party might be how you meet your neighbors, where you hold debates and discussions, a space for bonding and connecting across generations.
That sort of party doesn’t really exist for the rank-and-file anymore. For a vast majority of Republicans and Democrats, their party is simply a political allegiance — almost like a sports team.
There is, of course, a significant class of professional Republicans and Democrats. This includes politicians, staffers, and political consultants. But these are, in the grand populace of America, a tiny sliver.
This brings us to Donald Trump and some nuances of the anti-Trump right.
For me and many conservative journalists, the GOP was never home. It was never a “we.” I was always closer to Republicans than to Democrats, but my party registration oscillated between Republican, Libertarian, unaffiliated, and even Democratic. I registered as a Republican ahead of the 2016 GOP primaries so I could vote against Trump. I registered as a Democrat in 2022 to vote against my county executive. Neither of those went so well.
When Trump took over the GOP, many conservatives resisted it, lamented it, and some even despaired. These folks were called “Never Trump” or anti-Trump.
But a subset of the Never Trumpers and anti-Trump conservatives went a lot further. They started supporting Democrats across the board. They started abandoning long-held beliefs. They refused to support Trump when he was right, such as his tax cut and his judicial picks. In short, they began to turn Trump opposition into the center of their politics.
What’s the difference between the average conservative anti-Trumper and the folks who made anti-Trumpism their identity?
I think it’s that the latter group felt more offended by Trump’s takeover of the GOP, because the GOP felt like their home. Trump harmed conservatism and our country, and that upsets me. But I don’t feel like he profaned the GOP, because I never thought the GOP was sacred.
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Republican consultants and conservative commentators whose identity was caught up with the GOP had a more visceral reaction to Trump’s takeover.
I would hope that the last eight years have taught conservatives what they already should have known: Don’t make any party your home. Find your tribe elsewhere, and on politics, make up your own mind.