The primary agents of socialization that affected my political predispositions include family and career. At the age when I became aware of politics Richard M. Nixon was president of the United States and my parents, who were lifelong Democrats, were not at all pleased by his administration. Yet they also had a very strong conservative streak and they were highly dissatisfied with what they perceived to be treachery and hypocrisy on the part of those who had protested so violently against the Vietnam War. They professed to believe, however, that the Democratic party was the only logical alternative for working people--from the lowest paid to the upper reaches of the middle class--because it was the only party that was interested in securing their rights against the corporations that sought to exploit workers. They did not seem to grasp the interdependence of the various components of the economic system and were, therefore, willing (as Democrats are) to ignore the need to foster the well-being of all of these elements. In the midst of recession they believed that the only possible course was for the government to spend more money in order to encourage economic growth. The more logical alternative of supporting business in its attempts to revitalize the economy seemed to them to be a denial of the heritage of working people, the primary identification that kept them tied to the Democratic party.
Their attitudes (and our shared debates on these questions) had the effect of developing in me a predisposition toward politics in general because they were never unwilling to defend their positions and, indeed, considered political discussion to be an essential part of life. The fact that we differed on certain ideological points was not something that disturbed them because, as they saw it, participating in the process--even if one did no more than read, discuss, and vote--was the essential thing.
Political socialization associa...