[StoneRainbow68]

-—Nice insult to your parents.——

It’s not an insult. I’ve had lengthy political discussions with Mom. It’s just the way she is. Dems=the Working Man; GOP=the Rich. It’s reflexive, and she’s too old to change. Charlie Baker is the only kind of Repub she’d ever vote for, because he’s basically a Democrat too.

[Mears]

“Dems=the Working Man; GOP=the Rich. It’s reflexive, and she’s too old to change.”

—

You’re never too old to change-—it’s just that your mother is a hardcore Dem-——that’s her problem,not her age.

.

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[LostInBayport]

Dems=the Working Man; GOP=the Rich. It’s reflexive, and she’s too old to change. Charlie Baker is the only kind of Repub she’d ever vote for, because he’s basically a Democrat too.

You have succinctly described the mindset of the majority of voters in Massachusetts. I recall family members saying that when I was a kid, and those preconceptions have not lost their stranglehold on this state.

Hardly an insult. More like keen observation.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Dems=the Working Man; GOP=the Rich. It’s reflexive, and she’s too old to change.

This is precisely correct.

Remember, what became of the blue bloods and the brahmins were the abolitionists and hence the Republican party. Culturally, in MA, we are talking about moneyed Protestants, the kind we might consider country club today. MA sent people of this type to national office for years, until...

...the Irish and the Italians started gaining some political clout. In terms of polity, one of the dumbest things MA Republicans did was look down their collective nose at the Micks and the Giuseppes, because like you wrote, it soon became doctrine that the GOP was for rich blue bloods, and the Dems were for the noble working man. The Boston Traveler-American came to the front door, while the Boston Globe came to the back door (e.g., the servant's door).

Guess which side won out, demographically?

Now, add to it the tumult of the Vietnam Era: Left-leaning students here to exercise their deferments, and new fly-by-night colleges opening up to grant those deferments. The Era may be over, but the infrastructure remains, and many people chose to remain.

Also, I can't help but think there's a healthy dollop of snobbishness to the dynamic as well. Generally speaking, people in MA think they're intellectually superior to those from other parts of the country, especially the yokels from the old Confederacy. And look at which way those people lean, politically. Certainly, we're more evolved than them, yes?

Now mix in the Jesus stuff.

[BradyLS]

My dad is the same. Thinks Dems are all for the little guy and GOP are out to steal everyone’s money.

Scott Adams is right. Two people can view the same event in the same context and come away with two completely different interpretations.