I am an American.

That fact comes before all other aspects of my sociopolitical identity; and yet, all those other aspects now come under self-scrutiny.

America is 250 years old today, and on this day, I feel the need to look in the proverbial mirror and ask myself:

“Who am I?”

In these polarized times, I’ve tried to be a centrist; to take aspects of both sides and combine them into something that represents me. However, I fear that, with the right & the left in America having become so incompatible with one another, that may not be possible anymore.

In the past, I considered politics little more than entertainment; something interesting & amusing to watch on TV and read about in books & online. In addition, I spent 9 years, from the age of 9 to the age of 18–very much my formative years—in a place that was very much to the political right. Because I am a straight (for the moment, anyway), white, male, blond-haired, blue-eyed, citizen-born military brat, I was & am perhaps insulated from the more objectionable aspects of the American political right. In addition, my family has been right-of-center for as long as I can remember. It is for these reasons that, when it came time for me to cast my first vote, I chose to vote Republican, and did so right up until 2025, when I voted Democrat for the first time.

I am not as politically ignorant as I once was. I recognize that the United States of America in 2026 is flawed, and deeply so. I recognize that those in power in Washington are making life difficult for so many of us, and I recognize that I have been largely spared their attentions both because I am not an ethnic or sexual minority, and because my status as an American citizen is not in question.

And I recognize that, perhaps, I can no longer in good conscience consider myself politically right-of-center.

I see what the political left promises & advocates for—no-cost healthcare & education, equality between ethnicities & genders & sexualities, the preservation of the natural world—and I genuinely believe in the good of these things, especially as the political right seems to largely believe in the precise opposite.

I’ve visited some of those countries which have adopted leftward social policies—in particular the Netherlands & Denmark—and I’ve liked what I’ve experienced there.

And yet…

I remember history; I remember what China and Russia and other countries that adopted socialism & communism were like: Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu, Castro, Maduro, and so many others who adopted these policies are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions between them.

There are also those aspects of capitalism & the right I still very much align with:

-I like money; I like making money and spending money on things that make me happy, and I like how capitalism has resulted in no small amount of things to spend money on.

-I like guns & other military things; I support the 2nd Amendment, consider most gun control laws illegitimate, most of the family owns guns, and the first 15 years of my life were defined by the military.

-I admire the ultra-rich; I’d like nothing more than to have a mansion & a supercar & a private jet & more money than I could spend in a thousand lifetimes.

-I hate taxes with every fiber of my being, and consider the IRS an instrument of government oppression.

-I think AI is pretty damn cool; I can’t draw or paint or do visual art for shit, so AI art is a great way to depict what’s on my mind. Also, it’s better for getting a straight answer to a given question then searching thru a dozen conflicting browser results.

It’s clear that the political left is on the rise again in America, and I would be quite surprised if the Republican Party retains the presidency or Congress after 2028. I just want to have a place in the America to come, but not at the cost of those things I hold dear to me.

So…what do I have to do?