The Political Inclinations Of Fred Owens' Dad And My Dad: Eisenhower, FDR, And Norman Thomas

Below is my reply to a Facebook post by Fred Owens, commenting that his Dad was an Eisenhower Republican and he wondered how his Dad would have reacted to Trump.

Fred's brother Tom said "he would acknowledge some flaws, but over all support him."

Alan: My Dad was an FDR Democrat who voted for the socialist candidate Norman Thomas in 1948 - and for Eisenhower in the two subsequent elections. (Dad had tremendous admiration for Adlai Stevenson but thought he was too intellectual to be a good executive.)

Into his 80s, Dad pounded the pavement on behalf of Democratic candidates every election season.

Despite his ability to range widely across the political spectrum —  Dad was even a dues-paying, card-carrying member of Greenpeace when he died at age 86 in 1999 —  William Wellington Archibald (a Rush, New York, farm boy in a hard-scrabble Irish immigrant family) would’ve felt visceral revulsion at Trump. 

The only time I saw Dad truly shaken was the night Nixon fired Archibald Cox.

You could see that his mind was racing and he had no idea where “The Monster” might go from that moment onward.

Norman Thomas

Presbyterian Minister

Socialist

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas

Norman Thomas 

Wikiquotes

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Norman_Thomas