Political Self-Awareness, Post-2016

Professional politics is not a place for individualism, as one might obviously guess. You spend your time defending other people's decisions and beliefs, even if they aren't necessarily your's. As a Democratic Party leader on the Pennsylvania State Committee, I spent most of the last eight years defending President Obama. As a former Hillary Clinton staffer of both campaigns, I spent lots of time defending Hillary Clinton. Sometimes it's not fun. Most of the time it is though, because you basically do agree with the people you choose to associate yourself with.

Once upon a time though, I didn't work for anybody. It was 2001, and I was registering as a Democrat, mostly because I was angered by the outcome of the 2000 Election, an election that I felt was stolen. I became even more left-leaning in the post-9/11 world, as I was strongly opposed to the Iraq War. I was a protester in the against the war, but also against the Westboro Baptist Church and other social conservative causes that I found to be offensive. At the time I was a populist, very opposed to NAFTA and other major trade deals, on broadly ideological grounds. I also broadly supported gun rights, more cops on the street, and environmental causes. My politics weren't in a neat little box, but I was definitely a Democrat.

Over the past eight years, some of those beliefs have changed. I don't oppose all trade agreements now. I spent time defending drone strikes in foreign countries. I'm actually more for LGBT rights now than I was then. Tax policy motivates me more than war policies now, and i'm terribly conflicted on my feelings about guns and cops, in search of some sort of middle ground. Time changes people.

I feel liberated on one level though- I spent eight years of President Obama defending him, and awaiting the second Hillary campaign, and defending her, and now both are over. Taking the White House's position on issues like net-neutrality that I only partially understand can be difficult. This isn't to say that i'm going to reverse course on a ton of issues now just because Trump's coming to town, it's to say that I feel free to actually do a "political self-audit" now. Self-examination may be a good thing.

I'll close by stating a few positions that I've found myself changing my mind on. I do not support the drone attack program in foreign nations. I also agree with supporters of the 2nd Amendment that we should fund existing gun laws before passing new ones- so now I'd like to see them back up their words. I still don't support free college education, but I would support absolutely support some sort of student loan forgiveness program that is tied to income. Finally, I 100% support the ending of the war on drugs, and complete legalization of marijuana on a federal level. I'm sure I'll have a lot more, sometime soon.