Met an old boss (and friend for dinner) Surprising Take on His Politics Today
I've known this man since 2000. He helped hire me at a former company, later ended up my manager. But we were also friends. I haven't worked for him in nearly 10 years and have rarely seen or spoken to him as we live far apart. He was driving through my city last night so he reached out and we had a great dinner catching up.
Politics was something we rarely discussed. I'm pretty far left and he certainly was not. He was born and raised in an Irish-catholic blue collar, hard working family in Pittsburgh. He describes his folks as moderate Dems/Reagan Dems. My boss somehow ended up pretty far right.
I always thought it was odd because he's married to a very liberal social worker. I imagine they didn't discuss politics much at home...they are still married. So last night during dinner he mentioned something like "I can't believe the idiot we have in the White House." I was rather shocked to hear that and probed just a little. He told me that he is most offended by Trump's attacks on the press and his absolute ignorance of foreign policy. I was stunned to hear this from him. I asked him what changed in his political beliefs. He told me his kids (Now 20 and 17) have taught him to be much more liberal, especially socially, and believe it or not the teachings of the Catholic church.
So friends...there's always hope people might see the light.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Just as some background, my family has a long history of being Democrats, and my dad was no exception. He was a Democrat his entire life, but about the time I started high school (in the late '80s), he started listening to Rush Limbaugh (back when Limbaugh was new and everyone was like, "Whoa, who is THIS guy?"
He often spouted right-wing talking points and seemed to hate pretty much all Democrats at one point. I'm pretty sure he voted for Reagan and I KNOW he voted for H.W. Bush. I went away to college in 1990 and was filled with right-wing ideology, just from listening to him my whole life. But when I got there, I was exposed to a whole wealth of opinions and decided that my ideas were mostly wrong, so I changed my mind. By 1992, I became a very outspoken fan of Bill Clinton, and my dad and I had many knock-down drag-out arguments over it. And it continued that way for several years. He hated Clinton (voted against him twice), and was a registered Democrat who voted almost exclusively Republican.
However, as we both got older, I found he started agreeing with me more and more, and by the time I was nearing my 30s, I had turned him into a full-blown liberal Democrat again. I like to think it was because he respected my opinion more, and age had softened him to the point where he was finally able to listen to my points and they made sense to him. At any rate, I like to take credit for rescuing him from the Pit of Misery and returning him to the light side, whether I actually had anything to do with it or not.
