What if my parents had voted for Donald Trump?

I had another epiphany last week. It’s not one I’m proud of.

I was thinking about how politics is dividing friends and families these days and flashed back to my own family when it happened. You see, my father was a Republican and my mother was a Democrat, although I don’t remember them fighting much about politics, except for one thing: who started all of the wars?

My dad always said that Democrats were to blame and my mom always argued it was the Republicans. It turns out that Democrats were in office when both of the world wars started and Truman was commander-in-chief during Korea. Kennedy and Johnson escalated the Vietnam War that had started under Eisenhower, so if being in office meant you started the war, then I guess my dad won that argument – at least until the Bush family came along.

Other than that, we didn’t talk politics much in our household. I think both of my parents voted for Richard Nixon in 1972 because they considered George McGovern to be “too radical,” and they both loved Republican Governor Arch Moore, but for the most part, we just lived our lives and the politicians did what they did.

I registered as a Democrat when I became eligible to vote, mainly because a friend told me they offered more choices in West Virginia. Republicans didn’t even offer candidates for a lot of offices back then, so if you wanted to make decisions in a primary election, you had to be a Democrat. I don’t remember thinking of Republicans as the “bad” guys, just the “other” guys.

As I got older, my hair got longer and I learned more about the platforms of the two major political parties, I began to lean further and further to the left. I also began to wonder why my father could have ever embraced the Republican Party, which really never did a damn thing for him. He was a mail carrier and my mother worked on and off in retail, so we were probably lower middle class.

My parents owned one house during their entire lifetimes and they had to sell it when I was 13 for reasons I don’t want to discuss. After that, we moved from one rental house to another until I got married and left home for good.

My dad lived to be 71 and never owned a new car. My mother bought her first new car when she was almost 80. We didn’t own stocks or bonds. We had no savings accounts or 401(k). Trickle-down economics never trickled down far enough to reach my family.

All of that, and yet my parents were both conservative thinkers who routinely voted against their own self-interest. And then there were the social issues.

I never asked, but thinking back on it now, I don’t believe either of them would have been pro-choice. They were Baptists, after all. One mistake and it was straight to hell with you. They would not have embraced gay marriage, LGBTQ rights, transgender restrooms or legalized marijuana. They would have opposed women and gays in the military and talked against “don’t ask don’t tell.”

They wouldn't vote for Kennedy because he was a Catholic. I don't want to think about whether they would have voted for Obama.

My mother grew up in a house with a giant photo of Robert E. Lee over the fireplace, sitting on his horse “Traveler.” The fact that I even know that horse’s name frightens me a little bit. She had confederate flags around and taught me to play “Dixie” on the piano. She was born in Fairmont but her forebears came from Virginia, so she cultivated a southern accent until the day she died.

My dad was quieter, more introverted and harder to read. I never knew his parents, so there’s a blank there. Ironically, he might have espoused slightly more liberal views than my Democrat mother, which makes me think that politically they had been switched at birth.

If they were alive today, I don’t know what family gatherings would be like. Would there be arguments? Would we fight over politics the way so many people do today...or not? I don't know.

I don’t know if my mother would advocate for women’s rights and gender equality and pay equity or if she would be happy to be the dutiful southern wife.

I don’t know if my dad – the military veteran – would be put off by Hillary Clinton’s emails and liberal leanings and support the Republican agenda to make America strong and safe, or if he would espouse the freedoms that he fought for in the war.

In other words, I don’t know if either of my parents would have voted for Donald Trump – and that was my epiphany. My parents weren't stupid and they weren't deplorable, but politically, they were nothing like me, or, more to the point, I am nothing like them. Like a lot of children, I could have followed in their footsteps and accepted their reality, but I did not.

Today I’m a registered Independent but I still list mainly to the port side. Looking back at those early influences, before I began to really think for myself, I consider what could have been, and I feel lucky to have weathered the storm and guided my ship safely home.