Were your parents (or guardians) Democrats?

[NurseJackie]

Last edited Tue Aug 24, 2021, 08:08 PM - Edit history (1)

DISCUSSION: Did you grow up in a politically aware house? Did their beliefs influence your early political beliefs?

77 votes, 0 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes... my parents/guardians were Democrats.
	31 (40%)
	No... they were Republicans.
	28 (36%)
	No... they were Socialists.
	1 (1%)
	No... they were Communists.
	0 (0%)
	No... it was a "mixed marriage" (conservative & liberal)
	10 (13%)
	No... they weren't politically aware.
	1 (1%)
	No... they didn't even vote.
	0 (0%)
	Other.
	6 (8%)
	0 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
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[Johonny]

1. My parents live in a GOP town, they've always been registered GOP

don't think they've voted for any GOP in years. They hate, hate hate Trump.

[relayerbob]

2. Yes, very politically aware

They were both GOP, Dad moreso than my Mom, who was more neutral, but GOP. Was like Archie Bunker and Meathead ... but in those days, we were able to (mostly) laugh about it and have "spirited" (ha) discussions. Not like now.

Oh, and that VERY much drove me more liberal

[House of Roberts]

3. Yes. Alabama.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Dad tricked Mom into marrying him by saying he supported Stevenson.

Dad in reality loved Nixon and Reagan.

I come from a broken home.

[hlthe2b]

5. Pretty sure my Mom was a "closeted Democrat" at least at the polls behind the curtain.

The entire extended family members of my father's generation were old-school R's. Hell, My great uncle was a fairly powerful R judge many decades ago fostering an entire group of R-leaning lawyers among my uncles.

A very very very different time, though. When R's could still see (and admit to) some positive in FDR.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. My parents were Republicans early in life and into middle age...

But after I moved out of the nest, they converted to being Democrats! They really liked Joe Biden.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

22. Same with me ... when they were younger they were Republicans because their perception was

that the GOP kept taxes low, and they didn't want to 'give 1/2 of what they make to the government'. Also, all 4 grandparents were Republicans (but still good peeps, more the Ike type of Republican).

As they became more financially secure, and the specter of 50% income taxes faded, and the GOP became more overtly homophobic and racist and misogynist and lame, they became Democrats. Pretty sure they both voted for Big Dog, after having voted for Reagan (I think).

That's my mom and stepdad though. I grew up in their house, so I answered regarding them.

My biological dad was a Democrat and Union man, thru and thru.

[MyOwnPeace]

7. They were Republicans - and I don't understand it.......

Dad came from a coal-mining family (he, too, was a miner for a while) and you would think he'd be a big 'union' guy - but he wasn't.
My Grandfather LOVED Harry Truman, my parents loved Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.
Still in college I missed a day of classes to go home and vote for Nixon (yeah, I know........), but worked hard for McGovern and have never turned back.
Parents are long gone but I can't believe they would have EVER had a moment of tolerance for IQ45 - at least that is my hope!

[Tetrachloride]

8. My father was purple. These days, they would be

solid blue, if alive, along with the rest of close family.

Extended family is more blue than red, I believe.

[Tomconroy]

9. Basically both were Democrats. My mother voted for Tom Dewey

In 1944. Didn't like the third term, let alone the fourth..My father might have strayed in 72, but at the end of his life he was pretty radical.

[JoanofArgh]

10. I put other because they'd go back and forth from Kennedy to Nixon to Carter to

Reagan. They were basically blue dog Democrats/ liberal Republicans. They were socially liberal but my dad liked the Republican's stance on taxes. My grandparents , aunt and uncle, cousins on my dad's side of the family were all Democrats. My gramps was a state rep. and an FDR Democrat.

[rsdsharp]

11. My parents were Eisenhower Republicans.

My first vote was in the 1972 Iowa primary. You could register at the voting place, and the poll worker asked if I wanted to register as a Republican or Democrat. My mother immediately responded “Republican!” The poll worker looked at me expectantly, and I said, “Democrat.”

My mother wailed, “Oh God, we thought your brother was going to be the radical!”

[luvs2sing]

12. My parents definitely had liberal views and values..

and we regularly discussed politics and current events when I was growing up, but my mother never voted for some reason, and I know my father voted for both parties depending on how much he agreed with the candidate’s views. He was also a firm believer in term limits. I think he always voted for Democrats for president, but locally it could go either way.

So I grew up on the 60s with parents who were in favor of civil rights, and women’s rights, and against the war in Viet Nam..but their voting would not necessarily tell you that they were that liberal or that aware.

I will add that they were real anomalies in their families. Except for them, me, and one other cousin, the rest of the family is batshit crazy, I’ve checked pictures from 1/6 for their faces Republican.

[Harker]

13. My father told my mother that if she voted Democratic

she'd be cancelling out his vote.

Her little smile when the subject came up was the perfect tell that she went straight D in the booth.

[Deuxcents]

14. Mine were Republicans

I’m embarrassed to say they were way out there with religious leanings. I remember George Wallace stickers on my sister’s bedroom door. I am happy to say I survived that nut house and another sister and I are good Democrats.. still fighting the good fight ✊

[csziggy]

15. My parents were Democrats but actually conservatives

Back when I registered to vote in time to vote against Nixon in 1974, Florida did not have Republican primaries. So if you wanted to have a voice in selecting most races, you registered Democratic.

But my parents voted for George Wallace, Ronald Reagan, maybe Ross Perot, probably even Nixon in 1960. They never bothered to change their registrations even though well before they died Republicans had taken over the local and the state governments here in Florida.

Out of their four daughters, one was Republican, the rest of us liberal Democrats, at least two of us very liberal Democrats.

My parents influenced my early political beliefs since even in 1960 when Dad railed against "liberal and radical" John Kennedy I could see how much better a man he was than Richard Nixon. I was appalled when they came home and told us they had voted for Wallace - and was so embarrassed I wanted out of that house as soon as possible.

To keep the family together it was an unspoken rule that we didn't discuss politics. That was broken once, when Dad started sending out stupid political emails in 2008. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and did a rebuttal with a "Reply All" so it went to all his friends, too. One of his friends emailed me with a thanks and I never got one of those emails again. Dad never mentioned it to me in person, either.

[Backseat Driver]

16. Don't really know. Dad was hen-pecked and per her:

We're always on the same page...because she was a RW fundamentalist evangelical Missouri Synod Lutheran lune; she liked Goldwater; was always a poor SAH mom who kept having kids until she had that baby boy child, her favorite, who never left home; never even had his own phone number and cared for her until she was 93. Can anyone tell me how you can be a patent-holding OTJ-vocationally trained retired mechanical design engineer Luddite who still can't use a cell phone?

[dmr]

17. Portraits of Franklin Roosevelt & John Kennedy hung on a wall

in our house. My family had a lot of respect for Roosevelt. They spoke a lot of the days before, then after Roosevelt took office. They were very appreciative of his goals and changes.

I regret today not paying better attention during family get-togethers when the oldsters chatted away.

[mcar]

18. My parents were Kennedy Democrats

devout Catholics of Irish extraction. One of my earliest memories is of my mother crying while watching JFK's funeral.

Were they still alive, they'd probably be conservative Democrats, although my mother was more susceptible to Republican messaging (she though Ollie North was dreamy ).

[nolabear]

19. "Democrats" had a whole nother meaning in Mississippi in the 60s.

[nevergiveup]

20. My mother was an FDR Democrat

and dad was an Eisenhower Republican. They seldom talked politics but always voted and cancelled each other's vote.

[ananda]

21. mixed marriage

Dad was a business man, racist, and very anti-union.

Mom was a liberal Democrat; and believe it or not, she
had a good influence on dad.

After she died, his second wife ruined him ... Fox news
all day, and she was a very racist bible thumper. Ugghh

[Martin Eden]

23. Communists, for awhile. My parents were first gen Americans, born 1919 & 1922.

All four of my grandparents immigrated just before WWI, from Serbo-Croatia. Grandfathers worked in factories, and my family became involved in the labor movement when workers had to literally fight (and sometimes die) for so much we take for granted today.

Most of all my Aunt Kate (born 1907) who went to work in factories age 15 and put her heart and soul into battling the injustices. She became a district organizer for the Communist Party of America, eventually targeted by McCarthyism. She spent 10 months in jail while they tried to deport her to Yugoslavia but there were no birth records in the small village where she was born, so eventually had to release her.

Kate loved this country and sacrificed more in her efforts to help people than the self indulgent majority who cast stones from their glass houses. She was never allowed to become a US citizen, and lived in my home while my parents worked during my childhood. My Aunt Kate was full of wonderful stories (not political) and was the most caring and empathetic person I ever knew. I remember one morning in April 1968 when I found her sobbing, watching the news. MLK had been assassinated, a very sad day in our household. Not so much for my peers at school, whose parents were celebratory.

The year before she died, Kate and two other elderly women were featured in the Union Maids documentary film, which was nominated for an Oscar.

Kate was also in the book Rank and File, using the name Christine.

Like so many others who were swept up by The Romance of American Communism, they abandoned the Party before or soon after the horrible evils of the Stalin regime was made known in 1956 (I was born in 1957).

The rank and file were good people who really cared, struggling for a better and more equitable America. Now the terms communist/marxist/socialists are bogeyman pejoratives cast unfairly at anyone -- including mainstream Democrats -- struggling against corporatocracy and creeping fascism.

If "conservatives" are REALLY afraid of Socialism, the best way to avoid something truly radical in that direction is to get on board with good policies which help the vast majority of the American people. Universal health care, quality affordable education, equal rights, and a living wage are not radical. Most of this is embraced by other Western capitalist democracies, whose people are not victims of government "tyranny."

I wish I could tell my Aunt Kate that all she worked so hard for has been achieved, but we still have a long way to go.

[Hekate]

31. What a great family story, Martin

Thanks for sharing it

[Another Jackalope]

43. +1 My parents and grandparents were Canadian socialists - CCF/NDP

Of course that label doesn't exact quite the same penalty up here as it does in the States.

My maternal grandparents were founding members of the CCF - Canada's first socialist political party that later became the NDP.

[drmeow]

24. My dad, like his father and his grandfather before him

was Republican. His mother (my Grandmother) was dyed in the wool Democrat. My father used to vote Democrat even when registered Republican. He never told his father when he finally changed his party affiliation.

My mother was Democrat all along.

[frogmarch]

25. My parents were Eisenhower republicans,

but I KNOW that if they were here today, they'd be Democrats all the way.

[GPV]

26. Greens. Well, Dad went Young Repub to Indy to Green.

[Cairycat]

27. Both were Rs but

after my mom died in 1982, my Dad became more liberal and voted D in his last few elections.

My mom had been a reporter, and there were lots of newspapers at our house. Reading them gave me the sense that politics does affect peoples' lives. Forming my own opinions on reading them, plus my college education, made me liberal. An instantaneous dislike to Ronny Raygun sealed the deal.

[bdamomma]

28. Both of my parents

were true blue Democrats, thank god. Passed to myself and brother.

[Hekate]

29. Hard to know about my dad, but my mother's experiences & ethos shaped me profoundly...

… despite Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunt for Commies scarring her for life. She was afraid of activism — I had to figure that out for myself.

But the foundation she gave me was there: treating people unequally was wrong and integrating schools was right; the Civil Rights movement was right and people being attacked by police dogs and fire hoses showed how necessary the movement was. The wartime internment of American Japanese was wrong — and how many white mothers in this country do you think told their small girls about that?

I didn’t have the wherewithal in high school to really distinguish the two political parties at first, because conversations in the home were not framed that way. After all, President Eisenhower set out to force the integration of public schools, and he was a Republican president. But JFK was a Democrat, and that meant lot — and it was LBJ who brought forth the legislation that changed the country.

The first years of college were seminal, and I built on what I knew. My friends taught me activism. Thus, my life.

In memoriam, Mom.

[MissMillie]

30. My mom was definitely a liberal

My dad kept his opinions to himself. I do know he didn't like Trump at all. I've seen him trash some GOPers, and I've seen him trash some Dems.

I'm betting he's a moderate.

[tavernier]

32. Latvian immigrants. Republican because of Yalta.

Hard to blame them, but parties change. If they were alive now they wouldn’t recognize the Republican Party.

[Girl powers]

33. We were "Connecticut " republicans

Socially progressive, fiscally conservative. Yes, I’m that old.

[marie999]

34. My parents never discussed politics with me.

I don't even know if they voted. I was in the army right out of high school and my mother died while I was in the service so I didn't know my parents as an adult.

[NurseJackie]

35. In my father's "box-o-stuff" that he kept on his dresser...

... I found an old "IKE" campaign button and "NIXON NOW" button. They're a little worse for wear, I doubt I could sell them on eBay even if I wanted to... but I don't want to. They're worth more to me as a memento than anything I could get on Ebay.

34. My parents never discussed politics with me.

Neither did mine. Politics were for adults... and even then, I guess it wasn't polite to discuss them in public (in mixed company). But occasionally I'd overhear. My recollection is that he was more concerned about the issues and less concerned about "owning the libs". I guess times were different then. News wasn't 24 hours a day. We got the morning newspaper and then there was the CBS evening news or NBC nightly news.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

36. Great Depression FDR Democrats.

Very few Republicans in the middle-TN town where I was raised in the 50s/50s, mostly the tiny number of wealthy people.


KY.......

[Niagara]

37. My mom grew up in a R home.

Grandpa and grandma were dirt poor farmers that struggled with poverty and voted R. Grandma lives in Section 8 for Senior Citizens and still continues to vote R.



My mom worked for a union making $4 an hour, which at that time was decent money. Then, Ronald Reagan started busting union jobs and my mom switched to Democratic and has voted that way ever since.



Yes, our house was politically aware and I remember certain topics being discussed in great detail.

[In It to Win It]

38. My parents were Democrats. I was the closest to Republican in the family 😂

[Aristus]

39. My mother is an unreconstructed Kennedy-style liberal.

Even at age 80, she's strongly pro-LGBTQ rights and supports a woman's right to choose.

My Dad was a political weathervane. He supported whatever ideology was in the prevailing wind. I think at heart he was a soft right-winger who knew he was too smart to believe their bullshit. After a hard turn to the right after 9/11, he switched back after the War in Iraq turned out to be a disaster. He cast his last Presidential Election vote in 2008 for Barack Obama before his death the next year.

[Johnny2X2X]

40. Dad is a UAW Dem

Mom was a Dem, but worked at a pharmacy that played Rush Limbaugh every day for 20 years and she became a Right winger and is now a total Trumpster.

[DavidDvorkin]

41. Democrats when we moved to this country in 1957, but

they drifted rightward. By the time they died, during the Dubya years, they supported Dubya "because he favors Israel."

[Demsrule86]

42. My Dad was a liberal Republican who actually voted for Bill Clinton and changed his party

affiliation shortly thereafter. My Mom was a yellow dog Democrat as was her entire family. We were raised with progressive/liberal values. I guess you would say Dad was a Rockefeller Republican. Both he and my mother were civil rights activists. Dad disliked Reagan and while he kept his affiliation, I don't think he ever vote GOP again after Reagan's first term. I know he voted for Clinton for sure and I don't think he voted for Bush I.

[moonscape]

44. I came of age when there was no

familial disruption in having one parent a Republican and one a Democrat. We discussed, my parents debated, then they would joke they were en route to vote to cancel each other out.

My father, the Republican, was a brilliant non-crazy person. He would be appalled at what supposed conservatism has become. He was an environmentalist, pro-choice. Five days ago would have been his 110th birthday. He was outnumbered in the familly with all us female Democrats but we had harmony in the midst of political discussions and debate.

[Mad_Machine76]

45. Mixed

My mother usually votes Republican, although she disliked Trump I think she actually voted for Biden this last time and sat out 2016). She isn't super politically active and we don't talk politics much, so it isn't a big bone of contention between us. My father was an old-school Harry S. Truman Democrat, who really had the most influence over me in terms of politics, although much of what I learned and came to were through my own learning about political issues.

[Drunken Irishman]

46. Yes. Most my family are Democrats.

My mom's first presidential vote was for George McGovern. My dad was likely apolitical before he met my mom and she worked him to register in 1992 to vote Clinton.

My mom's parents were lifelong Democrats. My grandpa did vote Eisenhower during his first election, but likely only did because of his being a general and my grandpa being a WWII vet. Four years later, he changed his vote and supported the Democrats ever since, even being a party delegate for many years.

My grandma voted Democrat in every election, with her last being 2000. I still remember her reaction to the initial announcement of Bush's win. "Ah fuck it. I'm going to bed!"

She despised Reagan, hated Nancy too - thought she was such a phony.

With Nixon, she woke up extra early to watch his final day in office with glee.

My dad's last vote was for Obama in 2008. He passed in 2010.

My mom's last vote was for Biden. She saw him win, but didn't make it to see Trump's final day in office. She hated Trump ... probably more than any politician ever and I am glad she was able to leave this earth knowing he had lost but I really wish she could have seen him leave.

[Polybius]

47. My mother was a Democrat until Reagan

Loved Carter and was so upset that he lost, didn't trust "an inexperienced actor Reagan." By 1984 she loved him though.