Describe your father's political views. Do they differ at all from your own?

[progressive85]

(or father figure/closest male in family)

My father is a white Italian-American man in his early 60s.  He distrusts politicians in general, but there's a few that he's met in person that he's liked (most of these are local officials).  He's a registered independent, and is not "a political person" (yet he speaks often enough of it).

Voted for John Kerry in 2004, John McCain in 2008, Donald Trump in 2016, and maybe Joe Biden in 2020 (not sure).  Thought the Bush family was corrupt, thought Hillary was a corrupt liar (Benghazi made him think of her as a criminal), thought Trump was a "clown" that "had no business being President" a few months into 2017.

Believes mainly that politics are corrupt, probably not a coincidence considering that he was just becoming a teenager during the Watergate scandal.

Recently said that the Democrats and the Republicans need to be told again what the name of the country is - "the United States of America"...

I feel my father represents a lot of men his age who are not partisans, disgusted with the way politics has gotten, and are potentially open to voting for members of either party...

There's really no one major issue, they are not single-issue voters.

[Ferguson97]

My father is a centrist, if not slightly left of center.

He holds norms and institutions in a very high regard. He believes that bipartisanship can sometimes lead to good outcomes, but it's not an end goal in and of itself.

He has voted for presidential candidates from both parties, having voted Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Obama-Obama-Clinton-Biden, so his only "miss" was 2016. He has a lot of problems with the Democrats, but he thinks the GOP has become so absolutely insane that he categorically refuses to vote for any of them at the federal level anymore. He's willing to vote for Republican Governors if they're not "insane" as he puts it.

He is fiscally moderate and socially moderate-to-liberal. He's definitely become more liberal over time. He takes more libertarian approach to his social views - "if they're not hurting anyone, who cares?" He's strongly supportive of LGBT rights - especially since my younger sister came out as a lesbian.

He is moderate supportive of gun control and abortion, having donated to orgs like Planned Parenthood and the Brady Campaign.

Most of his moderate credentials come from fiscal issues, he's somewhat skeptical of big spending and high taxes (he's fine with increasing income taxes on the wealthy, but thinks stuff like wealth taxes and taking stocks causes too much instability).

He's supportive of the ACA but thinks single-payer is too expensive.

On foreign policy he's pretty internationalist. He views China and Russia as threats, and thinks that multilateral coalitions are better than acting alone.

He's pro-trade.

He despises Republicans like DeSantis, Trump, MTG, Boebert, etc. and dislikes Democrats like AOC and the rest of the Squad.

He's a HUGE fan of Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Economics- He definitely more economically populist than I am given he is definitely more anti corporate than I am, supports taxing wall street more and would be in favor of some industrial policies. On the other hand he generally is opposed to expanding government programs and is supportive of reducing the power of the bureaucracy as well.  

Foreign policy- He is very much against international institutions like the UN, WTO and is not a fan of NATO as well, and generally is anti-interventionist.

Social Issues- Generally similar to my views but definetly more conservative as he was strongly in favor of the laws passed by Florida , believes that the government has too much influence over kid's lives rather than parents.


So overall he is basically a right wing populist , but the main difference is he does care about the character of candidates so he was anti trump and he actually does care about economic populism as well unlike Trump.

[West_Midlander]

Basically just wants to grill although he's pro-Clinton and pro-Biden. He hates Trump and he is somewhat sexist and racist. It's not meant as a slight, it's just accurate. He holds bigoted views and believes in diverging gender roles, greater privileges for men, in short, and in the superiority of his own race over (all) others. He's Latino. He used to be Islamophobic but seems to have dropped that. His racism is sort of passive racism, it's not driving pure vitriol such as that of the Klan or other hate groups. I think this passive racism is probably pretty common among Latinos, and other groups, especially middle-aged/older folks. He is also somewhat anti-LGBT.

Mixed on immigration, leaning left. Anti-taxes and pro-social welfare, in general, and seemingly pro-choice.

I'm probably a bit to his left on immigration, significantly to the left on gender, LGBT, and racial issues, and about the same economically, averaging out economic beliefs, but I don't know his economic policy so strongly to be able to discern specific differences/similarities. And I'm pro-life.

He was Bernie-skeptical in 2016 but seemed to come around to him by 2020, believing that he would win the primary (a day or two after SC, ironically). Whereas, I am a two-time Bernie supporter and one-time Trump supporter.

We both don't like Obama, though.

[Continential]

My father is a Indian-American immigrant who is in his mid 40s. He makes 300k a year from his own (consulting/leadership?) business which he started in 2020. He is voting straight Republican because he hates high taxes and voted Biden because he doesn't like Trump because Trump reminds him too much of Indian politicians and he hates the corruption of India which makes sense because his father was a civil servant.

He is pretty apolitical and pretty tolerant of people. He seems to have a dislike of strict cultures and told me he wouldn't live in a place where Indians were a majority or significant minority and that he hates Chinese Singaporean culture and told me he finds people who "hate" America to be out of touch people who don't understand the beauty of America's free culture.

Ironically he supports Universal Healthcare even though he worked for Highmark before he started his business.

[OSR stands with Israel]

My father is a Indian-American immigrant who is in his mid 40s. He makes 300k a year from his own (consulting/leadership?) business which he started in 2020. He is voting straight Republican because he hates high taxes and voted Biden because he doesn't like Trump because Trump reminds him too much of Indian politicians and he hates the corruption of India which makes sense because his father was a civil servant.

He is pretty apolitical and pretty tolerant of people. He seems to have a dislike of strict cultures and told me he wouldn't live in a place where Indians were a majority or significant minority and that he hates Chinese Singaporean culture and told me he finds people who "hate" America to be out of touch people who don't understand the beauty of America's free culture.

Ironically he supports Universal Healthcare even though he worked for Highmark before he started his business.

Wait your dad is a Biden/Mastriano voter

[Continential]

My father is a Indian-American immigrant who is in his mid 40s. He makes 300k a year from his own (consulting/leadership?) business which he started in 2020. He is voting straight Republican because he hates high taxes and voted Biden because he doesn't like Trump because Trump reminds him too much of Indian politicians and he hates the corruption of India which makes sense because his father was a civil servant.

He is pretty apolitical and pretty tolerant of people. He seems to have a dislike of strict cultures and told me he wouldn't live in a place where Indians were a majority or significant minority and that he hates Chinese Singaporean culture and told me he finds people who "hate" America to be out of touch people who don't understand the beauty of America's free culture.

Ironically he supports Universal Healthcare even though he worked for Highmark before he started his business.

Wait your dad is a Biden/Mastriano voter

He told me that he's voting straight Republican a few weeks ago. He isn't very political though.

[Mr. Smith]

Generic Bay Area Boomer D, straight from McGovern to now.

My views are more heterodox.

Both very anti-GOP of course.

[John Dule]

The quintessential boomer independent. A political rogue. Voted all over the map in the 70s and 80s, including Nixon, Carter, Reagan, and I think Bush Sr. He loved both Perot and Bill Clinton, and routinely says "Better blowjobs than no jobs." He hated Bush Jr, then voted for Hillary in 2008 because "A vote for Hillary is a vote for Bill." I think he's lukewarm on Obama, but still voted for him twice. By 2016, he hated Hillary and thought Trump was hilarious, but he still voted for Clinton and Biden because Trump was too stupid. Most of his childhood friends are now Trump supporters, which tells me he might have been a Trumpist too had he never met my mom and moved to San Francisco. When it comes to local politics, he despises essentially every California Democrat aside from Jerry Brown, who he reveres. Pelosi, Feinstein, Kamala Harris, Maxine Waters, and Gavin Newsom are particularly frequent targets of his anger. I have also gotten him to join the Eric Swalwell Hate Club.

On the issues, he is pro-abortion, pro-gun, anti-free trade, anti-religion, anti-NAFTA, and ok with the gays. He is definitely more anti-immigration than I am. Despite this, he gets along with literally anyone of any race, creed, or socioeconomic background and can strike up a conversation with everyone from street vagrants to bowtied elitists at cocktail parties. I believe this is due to his business career, which took him to all corners of the globe and exposed him to every foreign culture you could possibly name. He enjoys racial humor like I do, but also deeply respects people of other nationalities and shows genuine interest in their countries-- especially China, which he both hates politically and respects from a business perspective.

Describing him now, I realize he's basically Santander. This explains a lot.

[GregTheGreat657]

I don't know that many details of my father's political views, but I do know that he is a Republican who voted straight ticket R in 2020. The only ones I know is that he believes that taxes and spending are too high and that price gouging is to blame for gas prices.

[dead0man]

sadly, whatever Fox News tells him they are


yes, they differ a great deal

[Schiff for Senate]

My father listens to NPR. He does not like Donald Trump. He listens to podcasts about things such as CRT and institutional racism and the like. He calls poor white people things like "white trash" (a habit I don't like) - like he found a Joe Rogan comedy thing on Netflix, and he asked me about him, and I told him Rogan was anti-vax, and he got irritated and basically stereotyped Rogan as a disgruntled (racist) white male after watching the show for thirty seconds. He's pro-direct-democracy, favours combatting climate change, supports gun control and abortion, doesn't like the Big Lie, hates Trump, is left-wing on COVID, etcetera etcetera. He believes in white privilege and the like (and favours identity politics - more likely to favour female, LGBT, nonwhite, non-Christian, and younger candidates) and is kind of 'woke' as far as it comes to racial issues (his choice of podcasts includes discussions about the 1619 project, reparations for slavery, affirmative action, all that good stuff). On racial wokeism, he's presumably a lot to my left. On gender wokeism - things like "Oh I'm pansexual" or "Oh these are my neopronouns": he's like the rest of my family - he calls the nonsense out for what it is (total idiocy). Like he was listening to a podcast about a guy who came out as bisexual, then transsexual, then finally as transgender, and couldn't help but mock the guy. He makes jokes about neopronouns and constantly changing your gender as well. Make no mistake, he's no *transphobe* and, like the rest of my family, harbours no hate for anybody. Not a bigot. But he can't help but find the nonsense, well, ridiculous - just like the rest of us. Economically fairly liberal as well, I think.

So yes, he's a Democrat overall (though registered with the Greens), but with a few maverick tendencies. His views are somewhat different from mine but not too much so.

[Schiff for Senate]

He loved both Perot and Bill Clinton, and routinely says "Better blowjobs than no jobs."

Lol

[Vice President Christian Man]

My father is a centrist, if not slightly left of center.

He holds norms and institutions in a very high regard. He believes that bipartisanship can sometimes lead to good outcomes, but it's not an end goal in and of itself.

He has voted for presidential candidates from both parties, having voted Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Clinton-Bush-Bush-Obama-Obama-Clinton-Biden, so his only "miss" was 2016. He has a lot of problems with the Democrats, but he thinks the GOP has become so absolutely insane that he categorically refuses to vote for any of them at the federal level anymore. He's willing to vote for Republican Governors if they're not "insane" as he puts it.

He is fiscally moderate and socially moderate-to-liberal. He's definitely become more liberal over time. He takes more libertarian approach to his social views - "if they're not hurting anyone, who cares?" He's strongly supportive of LGBT rights - especially since my younger sister came out as a lesbian.

He is moderate supportive of gun control and abortion, having donated to orgs like Planned Parenthood and the Brady Campaign.

Most of his moderate credentials come from fiscal issues, he's somewhat skeptical of big spending and high taxes (he's fine with increasing income taxes on the wealthy, but thinks stuff like wealth taxes and taking stocks causes too much instability).

He's supportive of the ACA but thinks single-payer is too expensive.

On foreign policy he's pretty internationalist. He views China and Russia as threats, and thinks that multilateral coalitions are better than acting alone.

He's pro-trade.

He despises Republicans like DeSantis, Trump, MTG, Boebert, etc. and dislikes Democrats like AOC and the rest of the Squad.

He's a HUGE fan of Pete Buttigieg and Cory Booker.

Interesting. What was his thoughts on Ciattarelli?