This could be IMHO since politics is about more than elections, but I’ll put it here:
Everyone here has political views - some might be consistently liberal, some might be consistently conservative, some may be a mishmash that doesn’t fit in tidily with anything on the left-right spectrum. I would like to ask…how did you arrive at your views? Would you consider them to have been taught, or learned from others - or just something you were born with by your nature? (There is evidence that liberals and conservatives have physiological differences outright in their brains, although that’s not the sole factor.)
I am generally socially conservative and fiscally liberal. I think I was more or less born socially conservative because I have held those views as far back as I can recall, even when they flew in the face of many family relatives or others around me. But I was definitely educated around to many liberal views such as climate change, single-payer healthcare, taxes on the wealthy, etc., because those views weren’t views I held originally and I more or less did a 180-degree over the course of several years. Those were the result of external, not internal, influence.
(poll to come - just pick the closest suitable approximation)
I voted “Other” because I believe for me it is a combination of genetics, upbringing environment providing reinforcement, and later general awareness providing additional reinforcement.
For whatever reason, my family has an iconoclastic streak so there is a strong tendency to anti-establishment views. For some this might lead to Libertarian philosophies, but our case we fall into staunch Liberal. Add into that the strong blue-collar labor union environment growing up, and viola! Nothing that I have learned in my long life since then has disabused me of these underpinnings. What I have learned is that many people have differing viewpoints and that they came by them honestly. In addition, I have learned that many have differing viewpoints and that they came by them dis-honestly.
I like to believe that I’ve arrived at my current political views pretty much all on my own. And those are: that while I’m not “in love” with the Democratic Party, I absolutely LOATHE the Republican Party as things stand right now. I try to be open-minded but the Republican Party usually makes it pretty easy for me to decide how to go based on the vast majority of its beliefs and actions.
I don’t know how to respond. I consistently vote D, but I was raised in Chicago where EVERYONE voted D. I know my mom and dad differed on their support for Daley. I think they were somewhat liberal, but they were the product of their times. For example, I remember my mom expressing disfavor for mixed race marriages - which shocked me.
On individual social issues, I think I am responsible for most of my own views. I was raised Catholic, but am firmly Atheist. I know I’ve changed my opinions on such issues as gun rights, capital punishment, gay rights well after I was out of the house - so I think various factors contributed to my beliefs on those.
My parents were Goldwater conservatives when I was growing up. By my mid-20s I was a centrist who left the Republican Party with John Anderson, but wasn’t ready to sign up with the Democrats either. I leaned Dem, but had no problem with the idea of voting for a Bob Dole-style Republican.
I was still in about the same place politically when I became a professor at an evangelical college. During the five years I taught there, I moved from being a centrist to being a liberal Democrat (which of course is where you find me today), despite an overwhelming absence of left-of-center influences there.
We are all influenced by other people, of course, and the influence of those around me in high school and college certainly made it easier to leave Goldwater conservatism behind. But I’d say the outside influences had waaay less than 30% of the effect in getting me from where I started to where I am now. It’s probably more like 90-10. So I went with 100%.
I voted 70/30. I’m sure I got some foundational stuff from my mother but I’m now more liberal than she is and much better informed politically. Not much from the community – it was a suburb during the Carter/Reagan/Bush eras but politics wasn’t a part of my circle while growing up.
It’s tough to say that no one has influenced my beliefs, but I will say this: I was raised very conservative, was told to register as a Republican when I came of age, but never cared or paid much attention to politics until after 9/11.
Through college, and young adulthood, I have become more and more progressive. On the political spectrum tests, I’m somewhere around Bernie Sanders’ political ideologies. So if anything, my political beliefs were supposed to be taught to me, but I instead were rejected and went in the opposite direction.
Last year I finally changed my registration from R to Independent. I don’t identify as a Democrat, as there are a lot of policies I don’t agree with, but admittedly they are the closest to my own beliefs.
I was raised in a Republican household, and my family is still largely Republican, ranging from nominally conservative to Trumpist.
I am a far left liberal. But I still learned all my politics from others. How else would I be exposed to liberal politics? I picked it up from college friends, current events, reading and study. Did I do it on my own? Mostly not. I am a product of my interactions with others. Just not my family.
I voted 70/30 as well, but it’s very hard to say. My parents were both Republicans although my mom is one of those annoying independents who thinks they vote the person not the party. Which is compete bullshit, it’s funny how they always have an R next to their name. And no, a one time vote for your neighbor who ran for dogcatcher as a Democrat ten years ago doesn’t make you an independent.
I did pick up a lot of political interest in college, however. And, as a double major in Economics and Political Science I was definitely on the center left on most issues. I’ve always been practical with my politics as well. ‘Go big or go home’ and ‘All or nothing’ have never been part of my lexicon. I have as many political enemies on the far left (by USA standards) as I do on the right. I lost more friends in 2016 over Bernie Sanders than I did over Trump.
So much of my politics came from my own reading, late night dorm bull sessions, often supplemented with copious amounts of alcohol and marijuana, and political work and volunteering post college, that it is hard to say exactly where it all came from. One of my closest friends that I worked with a lot on campaigns post college has gone absolutely batshit crazy, almost anarchist. She and I used to be considered the furthest right among the environmental group we canvassed for.
I came to them by myself, but obviously was influenced by my parents. They set me in a direction, which I found was far more conducive to my beliefs than any other.
My parents were moderate Republicans when I was growing up in New Jersey (they’ve also shifted quite a bit to the left in the last 15 or so years - partially because NJ Republicans used to be very different than the rest of the party and partially because they are Muslims). I grew up Republican. It wasn’t until I converted to Christianity until I went full bore left (mainly from reading the Bible since the Church I was part of was fairly right leaning at the time). I continued to move left, but then rebounded a little to get more moderate-left than far-left.
Interestingly I find myself in relatively the same place politically as my parents are. Though we moved to the left from our moderate Republicanism for very different reasons.
I am of the opinion that, try as I may, my political views are entirely unoriginal. I am like the bee which rarely if ever scouts out a new flowerbed or hollowed log; who prefers to visit recommended spots and evaluate them for her self. I am but a mere critic; but perhaps there is something unique in the collection of viewpoints that I hold in high esteem.
Mine are more original than most people’s seem to be, and yet nevertheless my originality consists in large part of selecting from among clever or insightful thoughts & observations that I’ve encountered, and then knitting them together into an integrated world-view.
I certainly can’t claim that I formulated the entirety of them from the ground up, from my own personal observations.
I voted “other” because I don’t know what you mean by “influence”.
I’m a liberal, but I did not invent liberalism ex nihilo. I read things, heard people talk, heard their opinions and arguments, and decided which opinions I thought were most worth stealing. This included rejecting everything my parents would have liked to teach me, and half of what I read. It included blindly trusting statements of other people. It included shrugging at a lot of things.
So, for example, I think that nuclear power is the only viable source of long term stable power generation, such as to be a suitable replacement for fossil fuel power generation. There is no way in heck I figured that out on my own - I am not an expert in power generation in general or nuclear power specifically. But i did pick that conclusion out of several arguments made. So would I be considered ‘influenced’ or not? Who knows!
My father was rather right-wing but other than him I was surrounded by liberals growing up and attending University in the liberal S.F. Bay Area. Perhaps I’d have very different attitudes if I grew up in an Appalachian holler.
Very early on, my mother taught me her “pendulum” approach: vote for the R if the country’s moved too far left, and vice versa. But by the time I was a teenager she was a liberal activist, especially fighting racial injustice. (Perhaps a major source of marital friction.)
Although left-of-center on most economic and social issues, I retained a belief in American foreign policy exceptionalism, even enraging my liberal friends by supporting Oliver North. :smack: At about age 42, there was a specific colleague, a much older man, who opened my eyes to the realities of U.S. foreign policy. (I retired early, expanded my reading regime, and probably would have woken up anyway.)
We never once, that I recall, talked politics at home. My parents are gone now and I honestly have no idea who they primarily supported. I didn’t start voting until I was in my mid to late 20s, because I was clueless up till then and didn’t pay much attention to any party.
I wasn’t “taught” political views, but my parents grew up in the Depression and married during World War 2. They were both pretty much mainstream New Deal liberals - pro labor, pro Civil Rights, and firm believers in the idea of an activist government.
The “family ethos” played a key role. Not politics specifically, but the general ideas of don’t be a jerk, help others (lots of teachers and preachers), etc.
So this meant more New Deal fans and such among the older folk back then. But sadly too many in their dotage listened to bad radio and such and got into stuff that was the exact opposite of this. As have some of my cousins. One in particular is basically running of the rails now and getting scary over extremist views. :eek:
So family influenced my moral world view from which I then developed my own political views.