I’ve been thinking about my father because this week marked the 12th anniversary of his passing. And because he loved to follow the political news of the day, he would certainly be interested in this upcoming presidential election.

I wish I could still talk to him about it.

Dad was a blue-collar guy. A factory worker and one-time union member, he was an FDR-style Democrat. In his estimation, Democrats were the party of “working people.” But he insisted that I would go to college and never live by the sweat of my brow. Although he had dropped out of high school to work, in midlife he earned a GED just to show my sister and me how much he valued education.

I did what Dad said. I became a teacher and then a college professor. Now I am a member of what political philosopher Patrick Deneen calls “the laptop class,” a mostly liberal segment of the college educated who have an outsized influence on our political, economic, and cultural institutions.

The laptop class didn’t really exist until the final years of my father’s life. Meanwhile, the fortunes of “working people” have faltered. Sadly, he did see that trend well underway before he passed.

I followed my dad’s love for politics, but my views took different turns. While I was a far-left, self-avowed “democratic socialist” in college, throughout my late 20s and 30s, I was a doctrinaire libertarian.

This puzzled him immensely. We often argued about economic policies and the differences between political parties. We didn’t argue well. His views were based on a visceral, straightforward sense of fairness. Mine were cerebral and theoretical. I could often see where he was coming from, because I had held those views myself. He could not make sense of the wonky, impractical, idealistic points I was making.

But he loved me fiercely and we hugged at the end of every visit, no matter how contentious.

My children were babies when he died. Raising kids and taking my religious faith more seriously changed my politics yet again. I became socially conservative. But I also became more sensitive to how global economic forces have diminished the lives of working people and damaged so much that conservatives hold precious.

I wish I could see what Dad would make of a conservative like JD Vance, who speaks so boldly against the faceless forces of big business, or of a Republican National Convention featuring a keynote speech by the Teamsters union president. I know for sure he would find the Democrat’s abandonment of working-class values and embrace of radical transgenderism and identitarian extremism bizarre and illiberal.

We would probably still disagree about who to vote for. But I bet we would find more common ground than ever.

Maybe strangers can’t talk to each other about politics with the kind of mutual respect my dad and I shared. But surely neighbors and friends can.

Who knows? Maybe someone might even change their mind over time.

I certainly did, and I’m grateful my dad was a part of that transformation.

— Gary Houchens, director, Educational Leadership Doctoral Program professor, School of Leadership & Professional Studies WKU.