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How do you survive talking politics with family?

Sep 19, 2013, 10:07 AM | Updated: 10:31 am

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Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Andrew Walsh Show.

This may be my favorite political ad I’ve ever seen. I am obviously the target for it. I am the type of person this ad is supposed to work on, and it does work on me.

For this ad, the candidate explains right off the bat that he is a huge liberal, a real, real lefty liberal and his dad, not so much.

“I’m Carl Sciortino and I’ll never forget that conversation with my dad, where I had to come out and tell him that I was a Massachusetts liberal. Dad is in the tea party.”

That ad features Carl Sciortino and his tea party dad. I thought it was absolutely adorable.

But I wonder how these guys got to where they are.
I think most people in families where there is just totally opposite points of view when it comes to politics, especially between parents and children, I think that usually the agreement most people have is we don’t talk about it. We just don’t. We just try to avoid those topics altogether.

But clearly, these guys don’t, at least not for the sake of this ad. Obviously, this guy is proud of his son and he wants to see him get elected. He wants to see him rise to the highest heights that he can personally.

But I wonder if they also just have a relationship where both of these guys are hugely into politics and talk about it. If you’re a member of the tea party, you’re not just casual about it. So, I wonder how they broach those issues.

I think about my relationship with my own dad. My dad is probably one of my favorite people in the world. I could not imagine a better dad, and I love talking to him.

He lives in Ohio still so we talk once maybe every couple of weeks, maybe an hour conversation to catch up on everything. But we rarely get into the politics because he’s super conservative.

Over the years, I probably get more liberal every day. Because of that, we just avoid talking politics.

It does come up every now and then, and there are certain issues that are just not quite as personal. If you are more conservative when it comes to small businesses and you don’t agree with me on the mandatory minimum wage, we can talk about that because I understand where you’re coming from. I disagree with you, but I understand it’s just a position you have.

It’s the social things I just can’t be calm about. When you’re talking about anybody being treated unfairly by society, when you’re talking about any issues related to equality, gay equality, equality for women, all of these things, I take it so personally. I can’t even enter those conversations with my family.

I think this ad raises an interesting question about how families talk about politics. Have you figured out a way to talk about politics with family members that have opposing views, or is it better to just leave it out of the relationship?

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of The Andrew Walsh Show.

JS

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How do you survive talking politics with family?