The Asterisk
My dad jumped into the conversation: “If Jordan ran for public office, would you vote for her?”
Silence.
Grandpa: “It depends on what she ran on…”
Dad: “No. If she ran on her beliefs now.”
Silence.
Grandpa: “We’d have to see.”
So that’s a no.
My parents aren’t particularly interested in politics, save the occasional remark about business or the stock market. My grandparents, however, are very invested, telling me I will understand when I am older and start paying taxes.
When I was younger, I accepted this idea and would concede when I got to a name or concept I didn’t know. Even at seven, I felt the need to live up to the “smart” reputation perpetuated by my family, so I would accept almost anything they said. I thought it made me a “better” person to listen and agree with my elders. However, some of what they said just didn’t add up to my seven-year-old values. Shouldn’t we help those that don’t have as much as us? Why is it bad to pay taxes?
By middle school, I had a general understanding of what I believed, rather than what I was told to believe. But whenever, in conversation with my grandparents, I went too far to the left, and they began resisting, I resorted back to phrases like “I don’t know enough about the tax system” or “I agree with you, handguns are the only exception to my argument for gun control.”
Despite continuing to define my beliefs, I kept up this routine through the beginning of 10th grade because it kept family dinners “miserable” and not “hellish.” This meant that the ideas I was trying to defend were subverted by having to concede the contentious element. It made me question whether I really believed these ideas, or if I believed them only with a caveat that made them acceptable to my grandparents. As a placeholder, I accepted the label “Democrat” with an attached asterisk, denoting subject to change.
In my junior year, I began interning for Katie Porter, a Democratic challenger in a historically Republican district. I began to immerse myself in real-world politics, working 6 to 10 hours a week on data input and donor research. Although the work was tedious, I was able to meet people from across Orange County uniting under a similar goal. This new environment forced me to think about the constant undertones embedded in my grandparents’ political dialogue with me, like when they subtly implied that I was too naive to understand their position or made me feel like a bad person for disagreeing with them. My evaluation of these character attacks after having met a variety of people–kind, intelligent, rude, stubborn, patriotic, etc.–through my internship taught me that holding liberal values did not solely define my character. As a result, I gained the confidence to unequivocally stand up for my beliefs, allowing me the ability to explore the necessity of the asterisk.
Instead of shedding it entirely, I came to redefine the asterisk as something that allowed my views to adapt to the ever-changing world. In the last few months alone, the US-China trade war has escalated, primary elections have been held in all 50 states, and the polling on CA-45 has shifted from “likely red” to “lean blue.” Each of these developments has made me ponder what I think about that specific issue, not what party’s position I should adopt.
While this process has been difficult, it has taught me the value of civil discourse and the importance of having an asterisk in the first place. In the face of divisive politics, this asterisk, while not perfect, allows me the flexibility to side with the better argument rather than just the party line. And while it doesn’t win me favors at family dinners, it serves me well almost everywhere else.