Hello and welcome to the political orphanage, a home for decent folks who don't neatly fit in boxes.

I'm your host Andrew Heaton, and I would never put you in a box, unless I was smuggling you to a different country we both wanted to send you to.

I've got a fun guest today. We're going to talk about a lot of things ranging from misinformation to tribalism to journalism but it's all

going to revolve around one's sense of identity the great tether which binds

politics policy ideology.

Identity seems to be the emotional animus of politics.

So before we get started, I want to prime you on the topic of identity.

Here's my question for you.

What are you supposed to believe?

And what I mean by that is, if a political consultant were looking at your various demographic boxes,

would they assume you're a reliable voter for a particular party? Let's say you're a gay

Hispanic woman who lives in Brooklyn. Chances are good, you're a staunch Democrat, right? That's what I mean. So think about what you are

supposed to be, what box a political consultant would put you in. And if you don't fit snugly in that box, if you break the mold, I'm curious as to what

factor you think derailed that otherwise congruous monolithic sense of political identity.

Our community of political orphans right here on the political orphanage is actually a pretty good test case for this because

most of the people who listen to the show are not lockstep partisans for any particular team.

Presumably we all have some instigating factor in our lives that has cleaved us from the two big parties.

If that's you, if your thinking thinking thoughts what your identity would otherwise naturally roll into,

why is that? What made you different?

Your loyal host, Andrew Heaton, me, is a straight white male from Oklahoma,

reared as a tepid room temperature Presbyterian

in an affluent suburb of a largely rural, overwhelmingly conservative state.

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