In 1982, I fell in love with baseball.  In 1981, a major league baseball team ended the season near the bottom of its division.  The following year, they developed amnesia.  They started the season with 13 consecutive wins, a record that still stands (though two teams have since tied that record).  In many ways, the Atlanta Braves didn’t know any better.  At the time, I knew nothing about baseball, but I learned quickly.

Though I didn’t know it yet, those 13 games established a kinship that endures today, over 40 years later.  Ted Turner owned both the TBS network and the Atlanta Braves, and thus TBS aired most of their 162 games back then.  I watched every game that I could.  I subsequently learned the names of every position player and remember them today.

Curiously enough, I have never lived in Atlanta, Georgia.  Furthermore, neither Miami (nor Florida) got a major league baseball team until 1993, so I did not develop any kinship to a team based on location.  However, I find that identifying with a team due to geography is absurd.

“Let me root, root, root for the home team”

Yes, I realize that is the verse from “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”…  played during every game during the Seventh Inning Stretch.  And if I were bluntly honest, it’s a stupid verse that encourages conformity.  Years ago, in 2001, when the Seattle Mariners played a phenomenal season and the Atlanta Braves did not, another patron at Barnes & Noble turned to chat with me while we waited in the checkout line.

The man noticed that I had a baseball book in my hand and asked, “Isn’t this season great?”  I had been an Atlanta Braves enthusiast for nearly 20 years; I held absolutely no kinship to the Seattle Mariners.  At the time, the Braves were in the unfamiliar position of not being first in their division.  At that particular moment, the season kinda sucked.  To me, the more interesting question is:  Why would a stranger assume that I was loyal to the Seattle Mariners?  In that moment, I considered asking, or more accurately, shaming that man for assuming my loyalties.

I’ve had these conversations before.  Upon declaring that I’ve been following the Atlanta Braves since 1982, I’ll get that predictable follow-up question.  “The Braves are your favorite team, but you still like the Mariners, right?”  No, asshole…  I actually don’t.

Other types of home teams

Of course, there are other types of ‘home’ teams.  No single religion is practiced by the majority of the world’s population.  If we truly had freedom of religion, we might expect our children to be similarly religiously diverse.  They’re not.  Richard Dawkins asserts that children don’t practice a religion per se; they’re born into a religion.  If only 28% of people worldwide practice Christianity, why does that number spike to 80%+ when the child’s parents are also Christians?

If any religion is truly legitimate to practice, as our First Amendment suggests, then why do parents systematically bias their kids?  Oh, it’s perfectly fine for other people to practice any religion, as long as they’re not my children.

Humans are social animals and value kinship.  In fact, love and belonging may be more important than unlocking the secrets to the universe.  If presented with the choices:

• Knowing with absolute certainty the answer to life, the universe, and everything, but having to spend the remainder of your life alone.
• A life filled with love and belonging, but conducting your life in a way that contradicts eternal wisdom.

I believe that most people will pick the latter.  In fact, one of the worst punishments in prison is solitary confinement.  Many types of kinship exist.  How often do we hear, “I come from a long line of Democrats (or Republicans)”?  Party lines are their own form of kinship; they shouldn’t be.

Who was the first Republican President?

I’ll often chat about political issues, though I seldom refer to the political parties (Democrat or Republican).  Instead, I’ll refer to the two entities as:

• right versus left
• liberal (or progressive) versus conservative

The political parties themselves have fluctuated over the years.  In some ways, the label is almost meaningless.  What matters to me is the approach to the issues.  Growing up as a child of immigrants and one who was bullied, the most important policies to me revolve around civil rights.

While I won’t say that all Republicans are white supremacists, white supremacists typically align with far-right groups.  Today that happens to be the Republican Party.  It is Republicans who maintain that we should keep Confederate monuments for historical purposes, while similarly removing the Department of Defense’s page for Jackie Robinson.

One would be surprised to learn that Abraham Lincoln was our first Republican President.  Suffice it to say the policies of each party may change over time.  For us to remain loyal to a particular team as its policies change is its own form of conformity.

However, let’s step back and avoid the hot-button issues like civil rights and abortion rights.  Let’s pick a couple of relatively innocuous policies like fiscal conservatism and smaller government.  They are conservative policies and typically Republican.

Do Republicans still champion them?

There are two qualifications to vote:

• US citizenship
• 18 years of age

These are written into our Constitution.  If it’s already against the law to vote outside of these two conditions, why are we needlessly proposing new legislation around how we vote?  Isn’t the antithesis of smaller government “The Big Beautiful Bill”?  Can you legitimately call yourself a fiscal conservative while condoning a bill that raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion?

These principles resonated with you when you first voted; they led you to establish a kinship with the Republican Party.  However, simply because you are standing still doesn’t mean the rest of the world (or specifically your political affiliation) did.  Has the ground shifted under your feet?  Has the Republican Party abandoned your principles?

Let’s return to a baseball analogy.  Suppose you attended Houston Astros games with your father and even grandfather at the Astrodome; you’re a lifelong fan.  Do you continue the unwavering support for them even after the cheating scandal?  What would they need to do to stop being your team?