In your years at FOFC, how much have your politics changed?
 

Was talking to another long-timer about how our politics have evolved in the 20+ years many of us have been hanging out here. This place has always felt (to me) like it leaned more right than anything, but with the Overton window having shifted pretty dramatically since the late Clinton/GWB days of our early years, I'm curious what folks would say about their political evolution since they started here to now.

(Not because of the board, just in general.)

I made it anon poll so folks could feel free to answer how they felt versus having to preen for the cam.

I used to be a pretty consistent conservative. Now I'm all over the map; liberal on some issues, conservative on others. Should mention that I think the 4-way political descriptions make more sense than the binary ones, so if looking at it that way I'd need to define the shift differently.

I would say the board definitely leans significantly left as compared to the US populace. If you're measuring it with some other baseline, possibly not.

In was liberal then, and am liberal now.

No real change. I consider myself moderate conservative economically, moderate liberal on social issues, and moderate politically. So moderate & independent overall, I've voted for Dem & Rep presidents.

Was pretty staunchly conservative when I first started on the board with just a few positions that I found inconsistent in the general GOP, and am now pretty far left liberal.

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My politics change on a regular basis. Generally, in the quadrant system, I end up libertarian, but every time I look at the Libertarian Party platform, I wonder what they're smoking.

The times I've considered being more involved and attended nominating functions, I've felt alone and frustrated. Politics seems to bring out the worst in people. If I'm in a room full of Republicans, I feel like a Democrat. And vice versa. I've never voted for anyone other than a write-in candidate for President.

Politics is all about absolutes and making people hate each other. The question is whether it's a necessary evil. I'm sure those who advocate extreme hazing to be part of a sports team would say it is.

To answer this poll, I can't think of anything other than the last option, though without attitude.

The poll options are flawed. My values haven't changed over the last 20 years but I'm not politically moderate.

That's why there's a trout option, you're welcome.

Some of the self identification is funny

SI

More liberal when I started, more libertarian now.

I'm not sure my policy preferences have changed, but I'm much more willing to be a process radical than I was.

I was a solid, conservative Republican when I started on the board. I was a two time voter of W, but his 2nd term changed all that. The Great Recession, coupled with my personal changes in religion, poverty and other things continue to push me left.Changed voting registration, pro LGBT, pro choice, etc, but I'm still closer to the middle than some would like, but the further to the right things get pushed the more further to the left I lean.

Still very much a moderate, but i have gone from slightly conservative to slightly liberal. If I had to pick an affiliation, it would be left leaning libertarian.

Commenting simply with what came to mind. "I'm on the wrong side of heaven and the righteous side of hell" (Five Finger Death Punch lyric)

I grew up conservative.
Now I'm liberal.

And this post made me realize that the entire transition pretty much coincidently overlapped with my time at FOFC, so I voted for significantly more left wing.

There are a few issues where I would say I could still be conservative, but they are either de-emphasized in current politics or I'm not even sure what the conservative positions is anymore (i.e. tariffs), so in practice I'm pretty much always on the left side of debates.

Going back to this, this board use to be way more right centered than it is now. Some of it is from the Overton window shift, but much of it is from the more conservative voices just leaving in higher numbers. This seems to be happening in most spaces now where at one time you could have a more diverse political population. Now, politics is way more "agree with me, or you must be stupid or a Nazi or a communist or *insert derogatory comment here*."

I also think that a lot of the conservatives here in the old days were more of the Romney/Jeb conservatives. When American conservatism went in the Trump/Bobert direction, they didn't follow and are now moderate/liberal types without having changed much themselves.

Have I changed, or has politics shifted? I'm not sure conservative means the same thing today that it did in 2001.

I was a college student when I joined, and now I'm in my 40's. I'm more conservative by default, but it's not a very dramatic shift and I would hardly call myself a conservative.

I'm definitely more liberal now, but the poll itself threw me. I would have changed "left-wing" to liberal, because every time you talk about right-wing and left-wing there are negative connotations all over the place.

I'd definitely more liberal than I used to be, but I would never go as far to say I'm more "left-wing" than I used to be.

Quite honestly, probably sums up my slight shift as well. (Which really is not much of a shift at all) Back then I had no problem finding republicans I could vote for in good faith as there were so many that presented a more moderate view. Hard to find those now and I would rather skew further left than give any credibility to the lunatic fringe in the GOP, or anyone that won't denounce them.

It's much different than it was. Politics is always shifting; being a liberal doesn't mean the same thing it did 20 years ago either. Agree with what albion said.

I would .. offer for consideration (cause I ain't up to the level of "argue the point") ... that conservative means roughly the same, it's just the pseudocons are more willingly identified as such over the past 20 years.

I don't think I've even heard the word liberal in a long time. Then again, we cut the cord when we moved to the south (for some reason, I think it's funny to refer to Ohio as the south).

The biggest change in politics in my opinion is the need to define ourselves by who we denounce rather than who we are. And people sure love denouncing things these days.

Rather than the religious notion that people are descended from some common ancestor, we seem to be de-evolving into some sort of duology - either you're with me or you're Hitler.

As always, I blame (or denounce) Twitter.

I was left-of-center when I joined the board, and I'm left-of-center now. I still believe that government has a role to play in improving people's lives, but I'm much, much more skeptical of that actually happening these days due mainly to the fact that most politicians seem to be in it either for the ego or the grift.

I mean, I know that was always the case, but even W Bush occasionally attempted to pursue policy. You can argue, and I have, that Medicare Part D and NCLB were hopelessly misguided policy initiatives, but at least there was intent there. Compare to folks like Cruz, Hawley, or even Trump who appear to be in politics solely to make a buck and blow shit up.

To be fair, some prominent national GOP politicians like Greene and Gosar have literally spoken at white supremacist gatherings, so it's less than epithet than a statement of fact.

I would say farther to the left on economic stuff. I believe in universal health care and other stuff that I didn't a decade ago. So I would consider myself a progressive on stuff like that.

Business-wise, probably stayed more moderate. I think the government goes overboard on some regulations (California and Prop 65 for instance), while also does too little on other stuff.

The biggest change for me is just wanting equality. It was just something I never thought about when I was younger. Not talking about race stuff, but everything. The law shouldn't treat a rich person differently than a poor person. I think the inequality between wealth classes is the biggest problem in the country. Neither party seems to really care about that (and in fact fights for that inequality), so I don't even know where it would fall on the political spectrum (maybe toward the libertarian arrow?).

I mostly vote Democrat now. Not a party allegiance thing as I voted for many Republicans in my life. More lesser of two evils at the moment for me. The party platform is mostly just white power stuff now and there is next to nothing on economics or foreign policy.

:+1:

Moderate monarchist when I joined. Now progressive left monarchist who is even more strongly against democracy and in favor of a more strictly regulated capitalism.

I wrote it that way by design and figured people could do what they wanted or use the trout option and talk context, heh. I suspected people here would quibble over the distinction between liberal as lots of libertarians/conservations call themselves classical liberals or whatever.

I'm more to the left than I was. But my identity has changed because now I'm knee-deep in institutions that are either literally Republican (government entities in a red state led by elected Republicans), or, entities that face more hostility from Democrats (in the criminal justice system).

Those experiences have made me more aware of and proud of being to the left, because I feel like it's been an incredible opportunity to make my little corner of the world a better place. Sometimes, (very rarely with anyone who actually matters, in person), I get a little backlash for being a part of those things. Our liberal mayor, existing in a sea of state-wide conservativism, has talked about the problem of liberals generally fleeing positions of public service in red states (or even just fleeing red states entirely), especially those parts of public service which can sway more conservative. I feel the opposite of all that. I want to stay because I feel like what I do matters so much relative to what else I could do somewhere else. Which has made me more liberal, and has made that more a part of my identity.