Do you share your parents' politics?

Back when Nixon was being drummed out of office, my dad said, “Twenty years from now, Nixon will be remembered as one of our greatest presidents”. I also remember him saying “Good riddance” when MLK was shot.

He died before I had really grown into my own political consciousness, but needless to say, I didn’t adopt his.

My dad was a Michigan Democrat and a strong union guy. I went the other way.

Both parents are very left of center NDP (Canadian Democrat) I am more center but still NDP and a strong UNION believer.

My dad was gone before I even knew about politics. My mom wasn’t really around until I was 25 and my politics were pretty set. I’m a Socialist and she is left of me.

Interesting. For those that split, when did that happen (adulthood, teen years)?

My mother was/is a rather apolitical moderate Democrat. Politics were never talked about, and from talking to her, it seems that she mostly voted Democrat.

My father was/is very right-wing, anti-immigrant, pro-gun, anti-tax, conservative who has voted exclusively Republican. He was pretty vocal in his racism as well.

When I was in my early teens, I distinctly remember getting into my first political-type discussions with my friends, and I simply recalled things that my father had told me. I cringe because I can vividly recall some of those conversations. My friends were appalled and the feeling was mutual. I remember thinking, “Well, I don’t have a response to that, but I’m sure my dad would!”.

Anyway, I started reading and stuff, and I am absurdly-liberal/left/progressive/socialist.

I can’t talk to my mother or father about politics today for different reasons.

Yep.

Absolutely. My dad was a diehard Dem, and were he still alive he’d no doubt be extremely vocal about his horror over the state of today’s politics.

I’m the same way my parents were when they were younger. My dad has gone too “conspiracy theory far radical left” and my mom went through a midlife crisis and came out of it in the Tea Party.

I am just in the moderate granola left wing—as I remember they were when I was growing up.

Both of my parents are registered Republicans. They have never voted for a non-Republican candidate, as far as I know. They were vocal at home about their political views; they still blame Clinton and Obama for how terrible the country is, but surprisingly say little about our two very liberal California senators. My father watches Fox news and O’Reilly and always has some red figure head on the radio.

My mother is more liberal than my dad, though. She forced him to vote No on Prop 8 because she knew how upset I would be about if he didn’t (I threatened not to speak to him if he voted yes.) She strongly believes in gay rights herself. It’s a start.

Both of my siblings and I are very, very liberal. We share almost none of the political views of our father. We have a different stance on immigration, capital punishment, abortion, GSRM rights, the food industry—just about any major topic you might hear about during election season.

When I was younger, most of my peers identified as being a Democrat because that’s what their parents were, but they were still against many of the things that mattered to me (access to abortion and GSRM rights, namely.) I felt pretty isolated from the kids at school. Thank goodness for college.

My siblings and I do not discuss our political views with our parents. They know we are bleeding-heart-liberals, in the same way they know we are all non-believers, but for the sake of civility we just keep those matters to ourselves.

My dad was a New Deal Democrat, he used to say his Catholic school classroom had above the blackboard “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt”.

In 1972 he was more conservative, he voted for Nixon, and soon felt betrayed. He voted for Reagan, but later said he would never vote Republican again.

I am so anti-republican it raises my blood pressure. I stayed much more true to my father’s expressed ideals than he did.

Not at all. My mother and bio-dad, etc… are both firm Democrats. A few people say they don’t care at all but call themselves Democrats.

Part of the family is Republican and I’ve heard them argue all my life, so on social issues I’m mostly liberal, but because I’m Catholic and believe we should all work hard and take personal responsiblity for our finances and a few other issues, I usually agree more with the Republicans.

I voted for Clinton though and my mom always writes in Hillary…lol, makees for interesting holidays for sure.

@muppetish I think I’d dig your parents, reminds me of my way of thinking. ;)

Noooo. My father and mother thought McCarthy was a hero and that communists had done him in. Nixon was our best president and the War in Vietnam had to be won or the “gooks” would come and invade the US. They were extremely ethnocentric and even predjudical against Irish, Italians, Puerto Ricans, hated black people and disowned my cousin for marrying a Mexican policeman and disinherited me for marrying a Jewish guy even though my grandmother was secretly Jewish.

I am the exact opposite in virtually every way except when my father was alive he was big time pro choice as was my mother and I am pro-choice. However, after my mother got older and had to socialize with old people, she denied she was ever pro-choice – she was a follower.

My parents are both Republican, though for the most part they didn’t really talk about politics while I was growing up.  In retrospect I recognize the signs of their politics, but as an apolitical youngster I wasn’t savvy to it.  Though there was the time my mom took my sister and I to march with our church’s pro-life demonstration.  It seemed like the right thing at the time, until I saw another kid my age drive by holding a pro-choice sign and I knew we were both holding signs for our parents, not for ourselves.

As for the specifics…My mom’s sorta like eggplant, she takes on the flavor of whatever she’s been around most recently…and she lives in Texas.  She likes to agree with people and is infinitely credulous.  Also pretty damn religious.  I used to constantly field inane email forwards from her and she seemed to think I was her personal fact-checker.  IE, its true until [redacted] says otherwise.  Never could train her to Snope an email header.  Currently the understanding is if she forwards me political arm-flailing or glurgy religion I with respond with relevantly themed music that I promise will offend her.  I’ve already played some aces so hopefully she doesn’t strain the pool I’m drawing from too much.

My dad’s really the only person I talk (debate) politics with off of fluther, cause while we’re pretty different politcally we both know how to listen to eachother and don’t really have other people to talk to about such things.  Its a good way for us to chew over the issues and politcs that matter to each of us.  We usually don’t change eachothers’ minds but we might introduce something the other wasn’t familiar with or just be forced to assemble our thoughts into a coherent argument.  Coherent arguments are good.

Whenever my brother and I (the only two Democrats in a family of six) asked my dad why he was a republican, he always got a bit angry. He would always say we were ungrateful. That if not for them we wouldn’t even be here. My family would all be back in the old country, dead or imprisoned. And I (the only one born here) would probably have never been born.

To paraphrase what he’d often say: Nobody wants to fight a war. But Republicans are willing to make the tough decisions. Democrats are not. They just want to talk. Talking doesn’t do anything. Talking would not have saved your family.

My dad was also in the military. For him, I think being Republican is about being grateful and being loyal. Two things that are very important to him.

My mother is much more open-minded. She never just voted along party lines. Even with her limited english, she would sit with the voter pamphlets for hours and painstakingly look up each word in the dictionary.

I remember my dad would often storm into the room while she sat there with her dictionary. He would yell at her about why she even needs to look up anything. Our family was here in the states. That’s all she needed to consider.

While I’m grateful for the decisions that led up to our family coming to the states, I also feel like I have an obligation to this country to make educated and carefully considered decisions. For me, that falls closer to being in the Democratic Party. But, of course, no political party is without it flaws.

I guess that makes me closer to my mother—without the dictionary.

I didn’t even think party mattered much for the longest time because my dad was a Republican and my mom was a Democrat, and when I was younger I was not much interested in politics. When they discussed politics the party names were not thrown around, they discussed candidates and issues. I know they both voted for the other party at times.

I have been a lifelong Democrat. I would describe myself as socially liberal and fiscally moderate.

My dad in the last two years of Bush’s reign converted to the Democrats and now will not vote for one Republican. The biggest change is not that he switched parties, but that he will only vote party line now. I would guess if a Republican really stood out as someone he thought would be great he would bend the party line rule, but that doesn’t seem to be happening, and he really doesn’t want to do it until the republican party shows a significant shift away from the religious right. His extremism bothers me a little, but I understand his reasoning. By the way, my dad was first a registered Dem, then in college he went republican, and then in his 60’s is when he went back to the democrats.

My mom votes for Republicans fairly regularly. She tends to be fairly conservative on immigration issues and a couple mothers, but then very liberal still regarding women’s issues, and others.

I guess I am like them in that I try to be objective, think for myself, and not make snap decisions without information on political issues. Generally, we are all on the same page, but definitely on some topics we are split. My dad, who probably would have been against gay marriage 20 years ago, voted in favor of it in his state recently. So, they evolve, which I think is good. They both care about the greater good, not just themselves, which I agree with, although admittedly in hard times it can be hard not to be self focused.

I am really glad my parents didn’t talk about the parties much, but rather specific topics while I was growing up. I am also glad my husband and I do the same when we bother to talk politics.

My parents were generally uninterested in politics but were basically moderate-liberals who became more conservative as they aged.

I am generally uninterested in politics but am basically a moderate-liberal. We’ll see what happens when I get older.

Neither of my parents was politically active but both were left of centre, my father being the further to the left. I have followed in his footsteps though my son has turned out differently being quite right wing.

My parents – both sets of them (because they divorced and remarried..so now I have two sets) are lifelong Republicans.

My mom (and her husband) is what I’d call Religious Right-Wing Republican Tea-Party-type..
My dad is what I’d call Rich-old-white-Establishment Republican.

They are both rabidly anti-Obama, watch Faux, er, Fox News and my mom has actually said bull-sh!t like: “The Obama death panels have already decided I can’t get a mammogram” out loud to me.

It takes massive amounts of patience and tongue-biting on my part to avoid their political rants and nonsense.

My husband and I (and his family) are all DFL (Minnesotan Democrats are Democrat-Farm-Labor or DFL party). I consider myself a moderate-liberal with strong socialist leanings (I believe in having social services and a net in place to help people)..and this is basically the polar opposite of my parents’ political views.

The area I live is District 6, Michele Bachmann’s home district. (A little red island in an otherwise blue state.) So..my political views (liberal) are also not shared by any of my neighbors. I’m getting really used to being in the minority among my family and neighbors.

My kids and I were vacationing with my parents in early Sept. 2012 and I failed to realize our vacation dates would overlap with the Republican Nat’l Convention dates. My dad insisted on having it blaring out of the rental cottage TV at all hours and kept picking fights with me insisting I couldn’t possibly be “stupid enough” to vote for Obama. I just begged him to not talk politics and specifically tried to avoid the topic.

My kids were slightly traumatized by his yelling but even the 8 year old was able to tell him where his arguments made no sense or had no basis in reality.

On the flight home my then 11 yr. old daughter said: “You and dad don’t talk about politics a lot..but after listening to grandpa..I have to say I think I’m definitely a democrat.”

Yes. I take the environment a little more seriously than they do, but for the most part, we’re on the same page.

When I was finally liberated from the U.S. Army, I probably didn’t cut my hair for at least a year. One day, The Old Man began cranking at me that “If you wear long hair, it means you’re AGAINST THE GOVERNMENT !!”

This from someone who hypocritically always kept two sets of books…..but I digress….

We became estranged and never spoke or saw each other, and he died in 1998. Someone told me that prior to his death he was walking around with hair far beyond his collar…...

HA…......HA…......

My folks were very liberal – socially and politically – and I have never deviated from those values.

My mother and father are both right wing. I am a moderate. I never agreed with my parents values as a child. But growing up in that environ made me aware of the intricacies and points where conservatism is useful and right. Clinton’s glass ceiling break gave him and his economy a boost but it did so at the cost of the future economy. They were right about the housing bubble etc. But socially the birth control option the gay marriages their ideas were abhorrent. Just to name a few examples. Bush sincerely bugged me and the patriot act was noxious. As was the war. I don’t know if any one would have done it differently though.

I am still morphing and refining my views. They are subtle changes as opposed to dramatic ones. But I do believe moderatism is the place to be. One can be passionate about it. The pendulum is always swinging but the sweet spot is in the center balanced.

My dad died 43 years ago and he was a hard core democrat. I guess I am too but he was a complicated guy. He was a civil rights advocate, even sacrificing is career to testify in a discrimination case but he was a bigot when it came to who his children hung around with.
I sometimes wonder if he would have turned Republican during the Reagan revolution but I doubt it. His politics were motivated by his union affiliation, although he would probably oppose abortion and gay rights. Then again, maybe he would have evolved as I have. My motor sure did. She was more liberal than me.

Unsurprisingly, neither of my parents were anarcho-communists.

—It’s awful when auto correct changes “mother” to “motor.”