Any Advice for the Soon-To-Be Politically Homeless?

By Jeff Maurer

Monday, July 13, 2026

 

I’m a comedian, but I did not find Donald Trump’s political ascendence funny. Funny is a monkey in a tuxedo; funny is a cartoon skunk with pre-MeToo values pursuing a cat. Choosing a president who has all of the qualities of the president in Idiocracy except for the good ones isn’t funny; it’s just a bad idea.

 

When Trump became supreme leader of the GOP, I felt schadenfreude watching some conservatives—many of whom are now Dispatch readers—react with revulsion. That was petty on my part, and I don’t defend it, but please remember: I, an Obama liberal, had many erudite, all-caps shouting matches with those folks on Facebook message boards. Remember Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women”? Remember Barack Obama’s tan suit? Oh, we had fun back then! It’s odd to have sepia-toned memories of calling someone “Super Hitler” in a fight about Obama’s mom jeans, but here we are.

 

Now, Democrats are going through something a lot like what happened to Republicans a decade ago. The left’s online id has taken corporeal form and scored a few primary wins. Now, the takeover is far from complete; it’s not guaranteed that the 2028 nominee will be either Lenin’s reanimated corpse or someone even worse. But for the first time, I’m contemplating the possibility of a Democratic Party that shares none of my values, which include empiricism, free speech, and being able to say words other than “oligarchy,” “Zionist,” and “don’t judge me by my old tweets.”

 

I may be politically homeless soon. So, I have a question for Dispatch readers: What’s that like? How does one mentally navigate having political views that are as in-the-zeitgeist as barbershop music? Many Dispatch readers have been clinging to wreckage in the Sea of Political Isolation for roughly a decade—any survival tips for someone whose ship might be about to plunge beneath the waves?

 

For example: How granular can I get describing my views before people will want to hit me with a pipe? When the conversation turns to politics, should I call myself a “Neo-Keynesian ‘abundance’ capitalist with classically liberal social views,” or is it less embarrassing to say “My IBS is going full Krakatoa” and leave? What matters more: A precise description of my beliefs, or having better social skills than, say, a guy who steers every conversation to the finer points of salamander breeding?

 

How enthusiastic should I pretend to be about obviously doomed third-party candidates? In this dystopian future, I’ll surely throw some votes into the hopeless, black void that could be called The Evan McMullin Zone. Do I need to pretend to believe that my candidate could win? Should I send texts to my friends like: “NEW POLL: Billy Blandass at 0.04 percent, DOUBLE HIS NUMBER FROM THE LAST POLL!!! HE’S GOT BLANDMENTUM!!!”? Or should I just admit that I’m making a sad little stand, like when my dad declared a fatwa against McDonald’s in 1986 (they forgot his fries) and stubbornly stuck to it even as McDonald’s became the most successful restaurant in the galaxy?

 

Which brings me to maybe the most important question: Should I hold out hope? Which is worse: Losing all hope, or having your hope unrequited forever? Is it good to dream of a sane leader riding over the ridge and seizing the throne, or is that like maintaining a laser disc library in the hope that technology will circle back around? Should I move on, or pray that Pete Buttigieg will win the nomination after being struck by a meteor that magically makes him straight? It seems like a renaissance should be possible; it seems like Americans would like their leaders to be sane. But it’s seemed like that for a while, and yet we keep electing these five-star, museum-quality lunatics.

 

And there will be no home for me if the Democratic Party is taken over by the Democratic Socialists of America. I can’t pretend that Bernie Sanders has good ideas. I can’t deny that parts of the leftist project emit an antisemitic stench so intense that you can practically see the stink lines. I can’t believe that some people are failing to pick up “piece of s—t” vibes from Hasan Piker, which are surely detectable in distant galaxies. This is bad stuff—and if this is what it means to be a Democrat, I’m out. And I don’t mean to overreact to a few races where a pretty-far-left candidate was beaten by a very-far-left candidate, but to return to the shipwreck metaphor: Recent events have caused me to begin counting lifeboats and make a mental list of which passengers I’ll eat first if I find myself adrift.

 

So: I’d love to hear any survival tips you might have! And if I do end up bobbing in the icy waters of political irrelevance with you, I give you permission to float on a door while I become a popsicle—after all, you got there first! I really hope it doesn’t come to that, but I’m listening and taking notes just in case.