Although my father was a conservative, he often voted for Democrats, especially for president. His theory was that the most (only?) important thing a President really does is nominate Supreme Court Justices, and he preferred a liberal court. He supported the ACLU for similar reasons. I despise some of what the ACLU does (not everything), and would never support them. My stepmother, also conservative. My mother was not as political but would vote Republican most of the time.
I think Dad had a problem in that his sole source of news was NPR. I would mention news stories (sometimes major ones) to him, and he would never have even heard about them. They should call the damn show “Some Things Considered”, or “Things Leftists Want You To Consider”.
My sister votes democrat, but her knowledge of and interest in politics and current affairs is probably exceeded by my dog’s (although to be fair, my dog does read “The Economist”).
I am always very interested when someone tells me that their parents have a different political viewpoint, so I’ve asked a few people how they think that happened. The common theme seems to be “we didn’t talk about politics much growing up”.
Anyone have a different experience?
(My parents are both total liberals and we always talked about politics when I was a kid. Shockingly, my sister and I grew up to be total liberals, too. My parents’ view of politics and how things should be completely shaped my view of the world. I can’t imagine just changing my mind one day, it would require a total reworking of my perspective on everything.)
My parents were fairly conservative Republicans. Interestingly enough, their 6 kids all turned out with different political views from each other. One lines up nicely with Mom & Dad, but the rest of us are all over the political map. The closest bucket that fits me is small-l libertarian. If we were to draw an analogy with atheism, I guess you could call me a soft libertarian – I acknowledge that the federal government does have some necessary roles (including public education, IMO), but it should be a lot more limited than it is now.
No major differences here; between me, my mom, and my grandma, we’re a tree-hugging liberal bunch. Oddly, Grandma has gotten much more liberal over the years. So did Granddad, before he died. And Mom is showing no evidence of going more conservative herself, so I doubt it’s going to happen.
My ex-boyfriend is somewhere between libertarian and downright anarchist, while his parents are veeeeeery conservative Republicans. I never talked about politics with them, and with him it was decidedly odd having a whole new set of ideas (some of which I thought sounded interesting but were way too idealistic) in the mix besides the usual American Dem/Repub divide.
Politics is something I can’t discuss with my family. They are conservative and I am liberal, but it isn’t the difference that bothers me but the feeling like they need me to know that I am wrong. We also don’t talk about sex or religion either, but I have no problem talking about those things with strangers. It would hurt me tremendously if my mother wasn’t able to handle my religious conversion and couldn’t speak to me anymore so I simply don’t tell her about it. Politics she is less likely to freak out over but she gets very dissapointed in me when she thinks about my political leanings.
As I have mentioned on these boards before, I come from a very political family - my father and brother both held office and around the dinner table, we would talk almost nothing but politics.
I was, and am, the lone screaming liberal Democrat in the family…they were, and are, raging Republicans.
Not sure why - I guess listening to their ridiculous discussions about the Vietnam War and civil rights got my blood boiling at an early age. My brothers still think Bush is a great President, which makes me wonder if there might have been some inbreeding in the family somewhere along the line.
My dad’s family is pretty orange with occasional tinges of red; the only political thing I can think of where I had a big difference with my dad is that I’m a Quebec nationalist federalist and he was the original angryphone. That led to some very interesting conversations from time to time (I still remember the great “nation” debate of 2004).