I was recently reading a book at the local library on voting patterns, and one book claimed people’s political preferences were usually influenced by their parents. Is this true in your experience? What were your parents political affilations? Were they the same or different? And how did they influence your own beliefs?
I think it’s usually true but not always. My political beliefs are not the same as my parents, who are liberal democrats who were strongly anti-apartheid beck in the day but otherwise not terribly leftist economically. I, on the other hand, am so Far Left I’m basically post-left. And I didn’t get that way under any influence from my parents, I got it from University and friends.
Both my parents were conservative Republicans. My dad was a big fan of Goldwater back in the 60’s when he was the most conservative. When Barry got older and had different stances on some issues my old man was quite disgusted with him.
Sometimes the influence takes the form of a modification, sometimes a following, sometimes a direct rejection. But what I do consistently see is that “political thought” is, like reading, something you’re more likely to dedicate time to if your parents did it.
My dad was a Republican (as is my brother and my youngest, and possibly another sister.) My mom is a Democrat, but very pro-life and anti-gay-marriage (she’s OK with gays having civil unions, it’s the word marriage that she finds objectionable…)
I’m not affiliated with any party and I tend to be moderate in most things, leaning left a bit. I don’t think either side has all, or even most, of the answers.
Chicago in the 60s. Obviously, both were Dems - EVERYONE was! 
Only difference was that my dad supported Daley and my mom didn’t.
On a national level, they tended to vote more independently on issues.
I’m far more liberal in my politics than they were - but I believe a great deal of that simply reflects changing times.
Hard to say, I never remember the topic coming up that much. Both my parents came of age in the Depression/Roosevelt years and my dad worked in the trucking industry (and for a brief time, for the Teamsters), so I suspect they leaned Democrat, but I truthfully cannot remember discussing their votes with them ever.
As for me, I categorize myself as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat while my brother tends to think anybody to the left of GW Bush is a dangerous commie, so we don’t talk politics too much, either.
A highly scientific Dope poll on this subject:
My father (b. 1900, d. 1992) called himself a Democrat, but today he would have a great deal in common with modern Republicans, aligning himself with the far right. If Truman and Eisenhower ran against each other today, Truman would be embraced by conservatives and Eisenhower by the liberals.
My father, along with his entire family, were Republicans, but I am a Democrat. I believe I disappointed him sorely by voting for Carter in 1976.
My mother was as apolitical as they come. I doubt she ever voted once in her life, or ever registered to vote. While I have a hunch her family were all Democrats, that’s all it is, a hunch.
Both my parents were extremely right wing, believing every stupid conspiracy theory coming from Fox and right wing radio. I am a liberal Democrat
My parents were blue-collar Democrats who were born during the great depression. My father took part in the D-day invasion and revered Eisenhower, but he probably voted against him. He did volunteer work for Democratic politicians for many years.
I came of age in the late 60s and early 70s and was further to the left than my parents were. My first presidential vote was for McGovern.
For reasons that remain a mystery to me, I became a Republican during the Clinton presidency. George W. Bush helped me recover from that. I’m back to being a bigger lefty than my parents were, but I carry a gun, which they would have never dreamed of doing.
My father was a conservative Catholic Republican. I don’t think he’d embrace Trump at all. Probably Bush or Kasich.
My mother is also a conservative Catholic Republican, but she has told me she’s in favor of gay marriage (!!) and I think she wants more done for the poor.
I’m very liberal.
My parents were Roosevelt Democrats and I doubt if either of them voted for a Republican ever. After my father died and my mother remarried, she almost divorced my stepfather (who was also my father’s brother) when he voted for Reagan (or threatened to). I have never voted for a Republican either although since I moved to Canada I have voted only in president and congressional elections. I am further to the left than they were but they might have moved left too.
My mother felt, long before Watergate, that Nixon should not have been allowed in public unless he carried a bell and chanted constantly, “Unclean, unclean”.
Obviously, this apple did not fall far from the tree.
My parents are fairly liberal but were willing to vote for Republicans in the pre-Reagan era when the GOP still contained fiscal conservative but social laissez-faire types. Nowadays I’d be very surprised if they voted for any Republican they didn’t know personally and could vouch for.
While I was growing up, my dad was a Democrat. He badmouthed Reagan, he voted for Clinton twice, he was just a run-of-the-mill Dem. Then he moved to South Carolina, and the 15-year echo chamber of Fox News and his conservative church and co-workers and friends has convinced him Obama/the blacks/Democrats/gays/foreigners/welfare queens/ACLU/Muslims want to kill him and destroy the America he fought for and loves.
My mom, on nearly every issue, aligns with the Dems. Her parents were both hard-core Dems, and she respected their opinions very much. But her husband (my step dad) is an old-school Republican, as are most of their friends, so she does everything she can convince herself to support and vote for the Republicans, but ends up (almost) always voting for the Dems. I don’t know why she just doesn’t come clean and admit she’s a Democrat anymore. Peer pressure’s a bitch, I suppose.
And I’m a hard-core liberal-- far to the left of my dad, slightly to the left of my mom. But I think both of their politics as I grew up shaped me into the Democrat I am today. Now I can only shake my head and wonder what happened to the proud liberals I was raised by.
My folks were teachers and union members, so they voted mostly democratic. I do know my dad was asked to run for the state house as a republican early on, but that would have been in the late 50s and therefor for a very different Republican party than the one we know today.
I’m a strange combo of libertarian and ultra-liberal, at least according to the political leaning tests I have taken.
There is probably some relevance there to the leanings of my folks but my political beliefs are based mostly on my philosophical understandings. I am a pragmatist first and foremost and my political leanings stem primarily from that.
My parents were Democrats (I supposedly helped them campaign for Stevenson campaign, but I was too young to remember), and so am I.
However, my father was registered as a Republican. The town where we lived was strongly Republican when I was growing up, so he registered that way to vote in the primaries to choose who would run on the Republican ticket. However, in the general election, he voted Democratic.
I’ll also note that my maternal grandparents were registered Socialists in 1919, when there was a Socialist Party in NY.
My parents were reliable Conservative voters in the UK. My mother now lives in the US and is not registered, but would likely be a reliable Democratic vote if she were. My older brother is a reliable Lib Dem voter, and I would be a reliable Democratic voter if I could register to vote in the US. I’d probably be a swing voter in the UK.
Both were right wing personalities but supported left wing politicians and causes.