Ask IDP about his father.
Okay!
IDP, what about your father?
If you read from
HERE on down, you'll get a rundown. It's relevant to this discussion.
My mother-in-law was a life-long liberal Democrat. Later in life, while she was still working in the teaching profession, in a Chicago suburb, she had a series of experiences that woke her up to reality. One particular one was when she hired a woman as a clerical worker. The woman was a black woman from a nearby community in Chicago. She was well qualified and my m-i-l was delighted to give her the opportunity at a decent paying job. Well, the next day, the woman came back to her and told her that couldn't accept the job, after all, because her family had told her she was being "too white." My mother-in-law was floored. She'd believed for all those years that the black people only wanted opportunities to be treated equally and get ahead. She gradually opened her eyes to the reality of the welfare state, after that.
My mother in law is now retired, at age 76, and watches Glenn Beck and Bill O'Reilly and listens to Rush.
It can be done!
I agree, it can be done. I've seen it happen. Still, there are an awful lot of people who are just stuck in a pattern. It's hard to change something as fundamental as your political affiliation unless you are confronted with incontrovertible evidence AND compelling motivation.
There are so many people here in Minnesota who are essentially conservative, but could not fathom voting for a Republican. They self identify with Democrats. They might come from union or farm backgrounds, having grown up in families where Republican was a curse word, and where everyone they care about were Democrats.
And yet those same people may be pro-life, in favor of traditional marriage, for lower taxes , for smaller government, for less regulation, for reinforcement of liberty, for firearm rights, etc... There is a cognitive dissonance between who they are - how they live their lives - and who they identify with and vote for.
You literally have to shock people like this out of their patterns, or most of them won't budge. And then there are those - like my father - who shut down, and don't wanna hear it.