RIGHT SIDE
Political identity
Kaitlyn Horn
Identity is a strange thing– the clothes we wear, the media we consume, the blank we blank. The fundamental parts of our public persona, yet they can all be falsified at will. Political identity is no different.
Call it cowardice, call it sacrifice, but even someone as politically dedicated as myself is guilty of giving people the answers I know they want to hear. It’s often a survival tactic.
Anyone with a Republican family knows that one single streak of blue hair dye can turn
Christmas dinner from holly jolly to a hostile communist takeover. Anyone with Democrat friends knows that even slight toleration of any current administration policy can lead to impeachment by cancel culture, on grounds of fascism.
But that was hometown rules– should the playing field not be leveled by college? Not exactly– historically, the American university has been a breeding ground for the liberals of tomorrow.
This is easily seen on my campus, where the current commander in chief is known primarily as “He Who Shall Not be Named,” alongside other orange-hued entendres. A mocking generalization will always be easier than a nuanced critique.
Nuance– that’s the key. Polarization in our country has turned any hope of bipartisan civil debate into a naive fantasy, a punchline even.
A Republican and a Democrat walk into a bar.
“The economy’s going down the drain,” “My taxes are excessive,” “AI’s changing the landscape,” “Social media is killing real connection,” “I’ll drink to that.”
It’s beautiful hearing political discourse flow. But as soon as you introduce and reinforce their labels, it's a bar fight like you’ve never seen.
The common man’s politics is hardly about policy anymore; it’s allegiance to your party flag, united in combat against The Other.
To lie about your political alignment has become as easy as lying about your favorite color, but carries a heavier weight than anything I’ve ever seen.
Even on a college campus, as we’re all in a stage of discovering and becoming, there's crushing pressure to conform to a political label and pick the correct one.
Unfair, paradoxical, and our unfortunate reality. In spite of it all, I wish for my friends and readers the courage to speak their respective political truths, as I wish myself the same.
