Both were lifelong Democrats

Hello everyone,

From the book Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman.

It would take much longer for African Americans to have even a block of their own. Paul Linnee’s sister Susan, who would later become the Associated Press bureau chief for East Africa, West Africa, and Spain, reminded me of that by retelling a remarkable incident from the summer of 1962, at their home at 2716 Toledo. She recalled:

Toledo Avenue was unusual in that the houses did not all meet the sidewalk from the same distance. Some were far back, some were flush, some had been built long before anyone thought of sidewalks. But it was—as all St Louis Park neighborhoods were at the time—very white. The Sperlings—our neighbors to the south—were the first Jewish family in the neighborhood, and there had been a campaign to muster all the homeowners to block the sale of the house—owned by super devout Christian Scientists who could not have cared less to whom it was sold—to Jews. When a resident from across the street called on my mom, Jane, and asked her to sign a petition, she was shown the door, with my mom telling her: “Finally the block is going to be interesting.”

Her dad, said Susan,

was raised a Lutheran; my mother was a non-Scandinavian Episcopalian; they switched to the Congregational Church because it was more “liberal.” Both were lifelong Democrats and my dad really agonized over voting for a Catholic for president, fearing, as many Protestants did, that “the Pope would run the White House” . . .

Does “Both were lifelong Democrats” mean that they were members of the Democratic party or that they were supporters of the Democratic Party.

Thank you.

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I don’t really think it matters. I am not really sure how to officially join the Democratic or Republican party here in the US. In my state of Tennessee, we have “open primaries” where you can vote in either the Democratic primary or Republican primary, regardless of what your official party affiliation might be. I am not an official member of the Democratic party, but I usually vote in their primary and for their candidate in the final election.

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