General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Were your parents (or guardians) Democrats? [View all]csziggy
(34,139 posts)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.