Ned Flanders
Banned
In listening to the post-election coverage on the radio it had occured to me sometime earlier tonight that I really had no idea whom my parents voted for. I knew that they were both traditionally coservative, but I didn't consider either of them to be so irrational that they would vote straight-ticket in the face of their personal beliefs. I knew them to be discriminating, but to what degree they were informed I had no idea (they are busy people like much of the rest of the country).
So I took the opportunity to call my mom and see what she was up to, who she voted for, and what she thought about the election in general. It was by far one of the better conversations I've had with her in my brief history here on the planet. We are very different in terms of personality and how we think, and despite the fact that she's a very caring & giving person, much of my life has been predicated around avoiding conflict with her because we are so different. So it was nice to have a civil conversation about things we might disagree about, minus the hysterics and raised voices.
Anyway, she's 48, and very Christian. She attends a non-denominational church that I would classify as something between Evangelical and Baptist. She's constantly reading Christian books and watching the 700 Club, but though she's proud of her faith, she's not one of those people that goes around rubbing it in peoples faces. She's basically your average middle aged Christian woman.
She voted for George Bush. Now this didn't shock me in the least, but it did interest me quite a bit considering a) I consider my mother a pretty good judge of character, and b) that because she fit the projected demographic of Bush voters to a T.
Upon ascertaining that she did in fact vote for Bush, logically the next question was "why?" She responded by stating that Bush fell in line with her morals. She's opposed to abortion, and though extremely sympathetic to gays, she opposes same-sex marriage, even to the point of a constitutional ammendment. She then went on to mention the fact that "liberalism is eroding the morals of this country" and that she just wanted someone who would uphold the traditional values of America. She basically seemed to evoke a sense of security from the fact that Bush was very open about his faith and how it guided his choices, and that his morals were more in line with hers.
I took this all with a listeners ear, and gradually the ball shifted to my court to talk about the election and the candidates. Without going into detail about what we discussed (I don't want to turn this into soapbox for criticism of any of the candidates), the conversation went on for over an hour.
Once things had apparently run their course, I posed a question to her.
"If we had this discussion 2 or 3 days ago, would you still have voted for Bush?"
"No," she replied, "I probably wouldn't have".
Now without skewing to any particular side of the debate, I think the major thing that stuck out to me about the whole ordeal was how uninformed she was about the issues and the candidates in general. There were a lot of things she never knew about the Bush administration, nor about Kerry's senate tenure. She knew virtually nothing about any of the third party cadidates. It struck me as suprising that someone of such a prime voter demographic was so underinformed about the election issues. Given that she's such a busy person I guess I should have assumed that she would have to get her information on the run, but it seemed to run directly in the face of the conception that middle-aged/elderly voters are typically the most informed voters. I always assumed that their entitlement to their political opinions was based off of their understanding of politics and being well read on the candidates.
While I was disappointed that she voted strictly on moral inclination, I was glad that she lent me an ear and respected my views (I think it's easier to trust someone who can see past the partisanship and assess the good and bad on all sides). The good news is that, despite the fact that she might have changed her vote upon our little chat, the fact is that in Texas your vote doesn't really matter anyway. So I can take solace in that.
I guess that might have been a boring story, but it was a really rewarding conversation for me personally and gave me a lot of insight.
So I took the opportunity to call my mom and see what she was up to, who she voted for, and what she thought about the election in general. It was by far one of the better conversations I've had with her in my brief history here on the planet. We are very different in terms of personality and how we think, and despite the fact that she's a very caring & giving person, much of my life has been predicated around avoiding conflict with her because we are so different. So it was nice to have a civil conversation about things we might disagree about, minus the hysterics and raised voices.
Anyway, she's 48, and very Christian. She attends a non-denominational church that I would classify as something between Evangelical and Baptist. She's constantly reading Christian books and watching the 700 Club, but though she's proud of her faith, she's not one of those people that goes around rubbing it in peoples faces. She's basically your average middle aged Christian woman.
She voted for George Bush. Now this didn't shock me in the least, but it did interest me quite a bit considering a) I consider my mother a pretty good judge of character, and b) that because she fit the projected demographic of Bush voters to a T.
Upon ascertaining that she did in fact vote for Bush, logically the next question was "why?" She responded by stating that Bush fell in line with her morals. She's opposed to abortion, and though extremely sympathetic to gays, she opposes same-sex marriage, even to the point of a constitutional ammendment. She then went on to mention the fact that "liberalism is eroding the morals of this country" and that she just wanted someone who would uphold the traditional values of America. She basically seemed to evoke a sense of security from the fact that Bush was very open about his faith and how it guided his choices, and that his morals were more in line with hers.
I took this all with a listeners ear, and gradually the ball shifted to my court to talk about the election and the candidates. Without going into detail about what we discussed (I don't want to turn this into soapbox for criticism of any of the candidates), the conversation went on for over an hour.
Once things had apparently run their course, I posed a question to her.
"If we had this discussion 2 or 3 days ago, would you still have voted for Bush?"
"No," she replied, "I probably wouldn't have".
Now without skewing to any particular side of the debate, I think the major thing that stuck out to me about the whole ordeal was how uninformed she was about the issues and the candidates in general. There were a lot of things she never knew about the Bush administration, nor about Kerry's senate tenure. She knew virtually nothing about any of the third party cadidates. It struck me as suprising that someone of such a prime voter demographic was so underinformed about the election issues. Given that she's such a busy person I guess I should have assumed that she would have to get her information on the run, but it seemed to run directly in the face of the conception that middle-aged/elderly voters are typically the most informed voters. I always assumed that their entitlement to their political opinions was based off of their understanding of politics and being well read on the candidates.
While I was disappointed that she voted strictly on moral inclination, I was glad that she lent me an ear and respected my views (I think it's easier to trust someone who can see past the partisanship and assess the good and bad on all sides). The good news is that, despite the fact that she might have changed her vote upon our little chat, the fact is that in Texas your vote doesn't really matter anyway. So I can take solace in that.
I guess that might have been a boring story, but it was a really rewarding conversation for me personally and gave me a lot of insight.
