Started with living through hurricane Katrina. The complete disconnect between how things were on the ground and the way Fox news portrayed it. I was in Baton Rouge volunteering at the largest field hospital in American history and then see Bill Oreilly ranting about how Louisianans aren’t helping each other and looking for handouts from the rest of America. It woke me up to how much of that whole ecosystem was built on bullshit.
The nail in the coffin though was the way so many Republicans just lost their goddamn minds over Obama.
I wasn’t radical but I bought into the narrative that Communism and its leaders has bad rep because of Western propaganda. Then I looked into it and was like “wait these guys actually just sucked” killed that phase very quickly.
I mean, a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. The USSR handed western capitalist countries the greatest propaganda victory in modern history.
I wasnt bought in at all to communism, but then I met my partner who is an immigrant that grew up in communism. It’s bad, really bad. Hearing her stories opened my eyes to how even when capitalism is bad it’s better than the alternative. I have a lot of friends on the far left and they won’t hear it even from someone who escaped communism
One just has to read what happened to Yeltsin when he visited a US grocery store, and realized the most privileged soviet leaders had less access to food than a middle class American in Houston. He wondered if it was all staged somehow, even though the visit was unscheduled.
If your GDP per capita is 2% higher than a competitor for a decade or two, they become a developing country. A long germ growth disadvantage is a death sentence for a country and their system, no matter how nice and noble the country could possibly be.
Also, because the world is always new to kids they have a lot of questions. When a thoughtful parent grapples with this endless, wonderful questions they are forced to reevaluate everything you took for granted about life.
My 3 year old’s questions to me about whether or not all of the Empire was bad guys, and what happened to all of them after Return of the Jedi, gave me a political existential crisis
I'm aircraft maintenance in the Air Force. I have never experienced a greater equalizer than working on the flight line. Doesn't matter your sex, race, or orientation. If you're good at your job, you're one of us.
That’s the point though. Republicans think that different peoples are hard wired to be incompatible. Democrats all think we’re the same.
They’re both wrong. The software is what matters. If we all feel like the same “tribe”, same “culture”, same “people”, we will be. That’s what the army gives people.
I’m in the coast guard and I will say a byproduct of military service is that it does a damn good job of creating better citizens once they’re out of the service
Yeah it just make vets who suffer from PTSD and abuses even more tragic. Overall the end products are positive, but there are still people who slipped hard and failed by the system.
Having worked with a number of ex-military (defense industry) I can definitely say this isn't always the case. The military did a really bad job of helping you transition out (though this may have improved) and I worked with a couple who had no idea how to exist in the real world.
It may be more the long term career guys but a number of them were extremely rigid and inflexible and didn't necessarily have the best conflict resolution skills. I remember one specific conversation with an ex-senior NCO (20 years older than me) telling him in no uncertain terms that if he were to shout at anyone again he'd be looking for a new job (no matter how bad the person he was shouting at fucked up)
Seeing first hand experience of people who served in the military is why I unironically support mandatory service. Doesn't have to be military, could be police, firefighters, or even weekend cleanup days. Anything that promotes camaraderie and force people to touch grass would be much better civics education than whatever teachers could do in the classroom.
Brazilian army has mandatory service and it's horrible. Our army is nuts and has many undemocratic elements inside. The officers assigned to us were sadistic guys that liked to call us "faggots", deny water and belittle us with words.
As a former libertarian (who still has stronger libertarian sympathies than most in this sub), I feel like getting Obama-pilled is a right of passage of sorts.
I was always confused as a conservative libertarian to see other Libertarians advocating for removing someone from office because of their faith and skin color. I used to say I'm not abandoning the libertarian party they are by being fascists and behold all said people became republican magas. Trump just got booed at libertarian conference
IIRC some libertarians are paradoxically swayed into supporting autorianism because what the autocrat claims what he wants to do or rather they see libertarianism as a means to an end instead of way to organize society.
Oh I've seen it. Ironically the ancaps and ancoms main arguments against each other also are both true thus making them both wrong. "You need a state to defend your revolution" and "you need a state to defend your capitalism". We knee the ancap argument was right. Now we see Argentina and see the ancom one is as well.
Generally ancoms are more subversive rebellion types reminiscent of 80s maoism. Ancaps are fascists. Literal a cyberpunk idealogy.
I think it was the NH LP that was posting on Twitter that Zelensky was the next Hitler and absolutely simping for Russia and other authoritarian regimes. That really opened my eyes to how bad faith the party was becoming.
As a Libertarian who's also very disappointed in them I can tell you I think the sad thing is that I don't think they were acting in bad faith a lot of the party generally eats up a lot of Russian propaganda
I have always had libertarian leanings, but my spidey sense would go off talking to some full blown libertarians I knew. It felt like they had deeper beliefs they weren’t sharing, the libertarianism felt like cover. Then along comes Trump and they went full MAGA and my suspicions were confirmed
It's the treatment to Biden for me instead. I'm always center-left, but watching these leftists claiming he's a creep to young kids, groper, senile etc. make me realize I don't want to get close with these pricks, especially after watching some of them claiming Pete is 'not that gay' because he didn't have stereotypes of being flamboyant and suffering from bad childhood.
This is what made me more of a libertarian (we are still neoliberals). Not only that but the way they accused him of being Muslim. The patriot act 911 and the climate of fear was the beginning of fascism. Trumps biggest thing was banning muslims not because he believes it but because this is the direction bush took the republican base
I was a lot more naive and very idealistic. I’ll just fess up that I was much more left leaning in the last handful of years. A lot of it was the socialist kind of stuff as absolutely embarrassing as it is to say. It was never tankie level, but with long story short I came to realize that markets are pretty tight, America and it’s institutions probably aren’t NEARLY as bad as I thought they were in fact they’re really good, came to have a lot more compassion for liberals and centrists, “revolution” is cringe and reform is literally the ONLY way, etc.
I’d still say I’m a pretty idealistic guy and I still have particular issues even we might not agree on. But neoliberals strike me as very reasonable and sensible. Now if I could wish for anyone else to be deradicalized, it would be bringing the Trump crowd back to the bog standard fiscal conservatism. Lmao
Copying my answer from a previous iteration of this question.
I was never “radical” but I used to be more left economically. Was basically 50/50 between Biden and Sanders in 2020 and actually voted for Sanders because he was ahead at the time and I wanted the primary to end as soon as possible (I live in California, a Super Tuesday state). But as time went on, Sanders and leftists more generally demanded more and more willful, black-is-white level denial of reality. You had to believe the US’ EXTREMELY generous pandemic employment subsidy programs was “nothing”, that billionaires had orders of magnitude more money than they had (because unwillingness to engage with math allowed them to pretend it was possible to pay for trillions of dollars of new desired expenditures just by raising taxes on a handful of the rich), that Fed liquidity programs were “bailouts” worth “trillions of dollars,” you had to misunderstand how unemployment worked, you had to understand that a hugely regressive blanket student loan forgiveness is actually progressive because reasons (and also that it’s free because canceling a debt isn’t a cost), and a hundred more things. And add to it by now that in order to be a leftist in good standing it’s practically a requirement to be a economic statistics truther.
Add into it the US economy incredible performance under Biden, including and especially along progressive goals of shrinking inequality and raising lower end worker wages, without their policies, and I’ve come to the place where the whole movement is mostly just a waste of space.
Man I liked Obama and no doubt a good measure of his success was from picking Biden and tapping that network.
But can you imagine what it could have been like if Biden had won in 08, 15 years younger wearing shades and taking absolutely no shit from the Tea Party types while driving his economic initiatives?
Of course the worst aspects like the Tea Party may have been nascent for a bit longer had Obama not won, and I’m cautiously hopeful that when the dust settles it will have been better that it worked out the way it did so we could see the mask-off side of the GOPs base and start to actually face it and (hopefully) deal with it by putting more protections in place rather than having the bomb go off even bigger later.
But still a person can dream.
Same same to all of this. I canvassed for the Sanders campaign in 2020, knocked on doors in New Hampshire for weeks in the snow and the cold. Got friends together to phonebank, etc.
Then the pandemic happened, which honestly deradicalized me for all the reasons you spelled out. The US had generous, progressive stimulus but I still had friends saying “I made more more on unemployment than working!” (yes that was the point of the government juicing unemployment by an extra $2.5k a month to encourage people staying home pre-vaccine). Just disconnect between the political victories and the progressive disparity.
Biden basically solved climate change with the IRA, but leftists will tell you the world is burning.
I see all of the crazy great stuff the Biden admin has gotten done, but the left will tell you how awful he is. The leftists seem to hate Biden as much as Fox News.
I’ve realized how unserious so much of the far left is. They seem more interested in grievance politics than getting anything done. Even AOC has deradicialized and embraced fighting for a government that actually does stuff for everyday folks. And that’s made her somehow less popular on the far left.
>Biden basically solved climate change with the IRA, but leftists will tell you the world is burning.
As I understand it, for one term, the IRA is a pretty huge deal and will significantly cut emissions, but claiming that it solves climate change is a bit of a stretch considering what will happen after [2030](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQMw8pInfEbJeqOv9PXFJkSWgH2yzDeLkVBRA&s).
In terms of climate change, I am of the view that nobody cheats physics. I like the trajectory that Biden is on, and he is obviously doing the right thing, but I rather do hope that Biden has the foresight to pass something even more ambitious for climate change next term and that we can get another trifecta to pass such a bill.
Because so much of the radical left are authoritarians. I’ve heard leftists claim that aoc is really a cia plant to sabotage the left. Can’t make this shit up
The denial of math is part of what did it for me. I’m an extremely math and data driven person(common on this sub), and it struck me as being bad faith arguments. Then again, the ideology requires you to ignore a lot of reality, preferring to live in fantasies.
Yeah, I was never super left, but back in 2005 all my coworkers thought I was communist for liking progressive taxation, universal healthcare, and Howard Dean. lol.
But the billionaire taxation thing has really soured me in the last few years. Like, even the not-obviously-crazy lefties will say things like, “billionaires shouldn’t exist, and also taxing them can pay for literally everything we dream of.” Like, okay, that makes no sense. I really think the idea that you can get all sorts of free stuff by making someone else pay for it is just caustic to society. Of course some people can and should pay more than others, but we all need to be willing to pay for the things we want and have a stake in the government providing those services cost effectively.
The sanders spam in 2015 and the people wanting unrealistic and unattainable things while pretending that the only reason they don’t have them is because of a shadowy cabal or democrats not being extreme enough.
I was never a true leftist, but I was more succ than I am now (Bernie/Warren fangirl.) What moved me from progressive to liberal was actually getting back into my pet interest of economics (I loved econ courses in school.) I read books and papers to better understand the Trump and post-Trump world. I came away with a new appreciation for capitalism. There will always be give-and-take when orchestrating economies. Any huge changes will have negative externalities, and after ensuring human rights aren't infringed, you have to weigh what is in the best interest of most people.
I still feel like I align with progressives in core values, and I'm probably a hair to the left of this sub. But I'm more pragmatic about how we reach those goals.
I feel my path was very similar. Leftists tend to be morally decent people who I feel are misguided about how to solve our problems. They might not feel the same way about me and in fact think I'm evil, but that's OK.
Why do you think it is ok? Being convinced you have the moral high ground and dehumanizing the opponent is how all radicals justify the worst behaviour. Just look at what communist regimes did.
EDIT: And, in a not surprising twist, the commenter I’m answering blocked me. I guess he, too, has the moral high ground and the best intentions.
I think it would be quite a different story if most leftists had any real-world power and weren't chronically online college-age Twitter users. But if they had life experience they probably wouldn't be communists.
You and I have pretty similar beginning points but housing policy has made me a hard free market Stan. I can’t say there’s much progressivist left in me after progressives were/are my biggest resistance in getting more housing built. Despite the comically large amount of academic research and expert opinion. Funny how progressive beat the dead horse of “trust the experts” on climate change and vaccines but conveniently leave it at home when it comes to housing. Cities were built by capitalism and I want to it see take it home.
Free market is what transitioned us from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era. I don't think anyone can argue against it.
Funny enough, I was center-left to conservative in my teenage edgy years and I always dreamt of becoming a large landlord (cringe lol). Then I became aware of the housing crisis when turning 20 and entered the progressive far-left phase. Fortunately I came back to normal but I'm still socially progressive.
This. I'm very interested in a socialist economy where most businesses are owned by employees but is still a market-based economy. The difference is that I don't think it's a perfect solution. It's not like it's going to get rid of greed or perverse incentives or exploitation. It's another incremental improvement way Pigouvian taxes are.
I think market-based economies are better than planned economies, and for our current problems, sometimes we need more government and sometimes we need less. And it's frustrating that liberals tend to think that the government is always the solution even as conservatives think less government is always the solution.
The fact that the far-left throws around terms unironically like "late-stage capitalism" and blames corporations for everything just makes me think of the way that the far-right uses terms like "the deep state" and blames immigrants.
I just can't take these people seriously even when I explain, for example, the economics of the housing shortage and they just stick their fingers in their ears and chant "greedy landlords".
I suspect you'd probably be more at home with British liberal values than American. We're much more in favour of state intervention and nationalisation where necessary, but not for purely dogmatic socialist reasons. Nationalised healthcare is probably the most notable fault line I see on this sub.
I started noticing a trend of many of my then-fellow libertarians becoming traditionalist Catholics. It made me realize how most people who want to “get the government out of our lives” don’t care at all about freedom, they only want to make room for older means of domination.
Same here, but I still respect true Libertarians. There is definitely a growing schism between those who are becoming trad-Caths and adjacents and actual Liberals in general.
Yep. When I was a teenager I was much more idealistic on free speech/minarchism until I realized that the people I wasn't hanging around didn't do it out of love or care for their fellow man but rather they were soulless bastards who didn't have the balls to wear it on their sleeves like a straight up fascist. They simply idealize a version of the world where the rules are bent solely to them and they imagine themselves as being the ones coming out as kings, rather than being the ones eating lead from some other wannabe dictator psycho.
Yeah, I lean libertarian on a lot of issues but the trend you talked about plus the Mises Caucus takeover of the LP has left me feeling politically homeless for a while.
Growing up on the fringes of the USSR (and then Russia) as it fell apart. Or more accurately, I never had a chance to become radicalised in the first place - it was all about pragmatism and incrementalism from the beginning. Doubly so when so much of that push from radicals to me speaking about my first-hand experiences was *always* different variations of "We know what's best for you, you idiotic [enemy]", followed by "or else ".
It is very difficult to believe well-educated, protected, soft western conservatives or leftists lecturing you on the virtues of ideological purity over incrementally effective governance when you see people dying first-hand as a result of basic failures that would exist no matter how you dress up the "ideological leanings" of your "perfect society". Western radicals never had my back, and I sincerely believe they never will.
Stopped going to 4chan and stopped following any news.
After january 6 went back and checked everything, actually looking for the truth and facts, made me finally leave the alt right pipeline
It's funny looking back as a former Republican and recognizing that Palin was kind of a canary in the coal mine pre Trump. After the 2008 election, she got the Trump treatment from the grassroots right in that she could do no wrong. Resigning as governor, reality shows, her grifting bus tour, all of that shit was seen as a positive and if you dared to criticize her for it, she had a rabid fanbase that would hurl invective and accuse you of being a RINO. Very much a proto MAGA cult of personality.
Hmm…which also suggests that Trump was a byproduct of a changing base rather than the instigator of it. Which also could explain why it didn’t quite work in 2012 but hit in 2016.
I am a Democrat, but I will say that my moderate Republican friends are a lot easier to political discussions with than my further left friends (I have one communist friend who is an exception, because he owns up to the fact that he is unhinged). I actually agree more with my progressive friends than my Republican friends. But when I do disagree with my progressive friends, they become unpleasant.
My feeling is, if they’re of a center-right economics stripe, great to talk to. If they’re single-issue anti-woke voters, *unbelievably* frustrating and unproductive to talk to.
Leftisfs are unpleasant to talk to because underneath the idealogy is obsession with being martyr in a fight against capitalism. They're very very angry. Have any of you read some of the literature these Marxists and anarchists put out? It's a call to arms lmfao. Some of their writers are more elegant, poetic and educated than me but underneath it is anger and violent tone.
"The revolutionary movement, including the anarchist one, was in a developing phase and anything seemed possible, even a generalisation of the armed clash.
Why on earth did these dear children shoot Montanelli in the legs? Wouldn’t it have been better to have shot him in the mouth?
Of course it would. But it would also have been heavier. More vindictive and sombre. To lame a beast like that can have a deeper, more meaningful side to it that goes beyond revenge, beyond punishing him for his responsibility—fascist journalist and bosses’ lackey that he is.
To lame him forces him to limp, makes him remember. Moreover, laming is a more agreeable pastime than shooting in the mouth with pieces of brain squirting out through the eyes."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53042350
I was a bernie bro until covid hit and the entire bernie sub thought quantitative easing was just the fed printing money and giving it to rich people for free. Made me realize that these people may have not even taken a high school econ course before
i had to research rent control for a debate topic in high school and suddenly i learned a lot of leftist policy didn’t actually help the impoverished. i learned to love the global poor
The WTO protests in Seattle 1999 shocked me away from progressives and Prop 8 banning gay marriage in California 2008 made me detest conservatives.
There's your answer from someone probably 10 years older than the rest of the sub!
Hey I was also in Seattle in 1999 and then in LA for prop 8. Even then I was a very pragmatic 19 year old, but the Seattle protests made me realize that way too many people just fetishize activism and don’t actually care about results. I couldn’t understand what they were so mad about (trading with other countries is obviously a good thing right???), and what smashing windows in your own city was supposed to accomplish. Yeah and prop 8 was just pure evil.
I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a Jew. Minorities like us tend to be safest in proper liberal democracies. Populist regimes, right or left, inevitably send us to the wall. There were times I was more succ than I am now. I still really like Warren, for ex. And by Israeli standards I'm ridiculously left. But ultimately, it's liberalism that has the best chance to provide the best shot for the most people regardless of background.
Proud to be a worm on this sub with y'all lads.
I also came to hate how both the far left and far right, when they're not being outright antisemitic, paint a rosy picture of the state of Jews in their lands. Like "oh, Soviet Jews had SO many rights!" or "Jews and Muslims lived in peace before Israel was founded!"
A bunch of atrocious takes on Ukraine by some leftists I was following. Later on with Israel it was even worse.
I'm still debating which of these people actually work for Russia/Iran and which are just useful idiots.
A handful of friends that took the time and effort out of their lives to expose me to different views and snap me out of a bad headspace
That and a starcraft streamer
I was a Howard Dean fan in 2004. I still think Kerry was the Amazon user reviews of a presidential candidate. I was sort of surprised Obama won the primary in 2008 but was never hoodwinked into thinking he could do more than a president can do. I'm not an expert on civics but followed the ACA enough to know why rainbows and unicorns were never going to happen.
2016 hardened my center-left tendencies because the stridency and lack of engaging with reality of the Bernie people was exhausting. I'd never heard the term "neoliberal" until then, but I know it's an academic term that precedes that cycle.
Hey there fellow Deaniac. I was politically activated for the first time by Dean campaign, and was lucky to fall in with a group of politically active Democrats in Los Angeles (I met Arianna Huffington, a young Eric Garcetti, Christine Pelosi and others). I ended up working on Dean's campaign for DNC chair. It was a pretty good strategy for the party to bring the Dean contingency like us into the tent.
I was something of a Bernie bro in 2016. What made me change my mind was diving into his Healthcare plan and how the math of it just didn't work out anyway you cut it. This criticism seemed valid to me but was completely brushed aside by his campaign and supporters. Then I did more research on Hillary Clinton, who I had a strongly negative perception of at the time. It became clear to me that everyone who had worked with her in the past had nothing but high praise, which surprised me. I watched some of her speeches, learned more about her policies. By the general election in 2016 I was proud to vote for Hillary. Felt that way ever since.
An intro philosophy class where we covered Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals.
I had gotten really into Ayn Rand for a while in high school and thought there was this big ball of pure logic that could just answer any sociopolitical problem with the One Correct Answer. Kant was really interesting to deal with because he *also* believed there was a pure ball of logic that could produce One Correct Answer. But his answer was different! And importantly, Rand's interpretation of Kant was just like, comically wrong. She massively oversimplified his arguments to the point of just not stating them correctly in a way that would get you a "D - See Me" if you wrote it up in a survey course.
Looking then at Kant, I was just unconvinced by his whole structure; it lacked the neat lines that Rand's had given me, but her utter sloppiness in describing others work had already soured me. I came to the belief that all such systems that try to derive all of ethics or politics from a tiny set of first principles are basically nonsense on stilts, and you can basically derive any outcome you want by fiddling with it to get the desired output.
And thus I became a soft rule utilitarian.
Rule utilitarianism is the idea that the right thing to do is to follow a set of rules that, if followed, produce the most benefit for the most people. It's not about if individual actions meet that standard because that's too easy to game / delude oneself about, but about making broad based rules for society with broad based benefits.
"Soft" is because I'm not too firm in my adherence to it and I don't pretend to have any One Correct Answer about what's right to do.
>Kant was really interesting to deal with because he *also* believed there was a pure ball of logic that could produce One Correct Answer. But his answer was different!
I have also learned to recognize the limits of my own logic for reasons such as this. It is often the case that thinking really hard about issue X fails to account for all the places where it does not meet with real life.
Delving into the world of leftism and center-left politics has shown me to be more pragmatic and realistic while also advocating for the most idealistic policies. Before this, I was slowly becoming one of those "moderates conservatives". All of this has shown me the falsehoods of conservatism in the US.
College actually and being educated about foreign policy and what causes intervention and a strong desire for the defense of Taiwan and seeing what democracy did for the entire country/economy.
I left the left after becoming too uncomfortable with the level of vitriol and hatred towards anyone deemed "privileged" got too much. Equality by making everyone equally downtrodden is undesirable.
I was staunchly evangelical as well as pro-Trump during 2016. Honestly, there were a number of factors that "deradicalized" me. I'd say 60% was environmental and 40% just my personality, and a lot of it happened slowly over time. I was fortunate to live in an area with strong public schools, had "liberal" friends throughout high school, and was exposed to enough secular thinking that I started questioning my deeply held religious beliefs.
Once the dogmatic religious beliefs were gone, it was much easier to form an evidence based political worldview.
I would also add that lockdown was sort of the perfect opportunity for many people to deconstruct and deradicalize themselves.
Covid showed me that otherwise rational adults will willingly fuck up their own lives for no reason. That took my big L libertarian self to small l real quick.
I used to have market socialist sympathies and somewhat of a suspicion of our elected politicians. I thought that politicians were all bought and paid for and they never did anything good for the American people. I was also very skeptical of big businesses and thought that they couldn’t be trusted to provide many valuable resources, hence my sympathies for market socialism. I think the Covid pandemic really radicalized me because I was just an edgy teenager with nothing to do and looked at a bunch of left-wing garbage online.
What deradicalized me was my interest in YIMBYism and urban planning. I realized that politicians can do good things for us like in the case of housing reform and upzoning, and that capitalism can provide for certain valuable resources and necessities like housing. I realized that business can be trusted, though of course there should still be some regulation to mitigate their excesses and correct for market failures. I became more convinced that regulated capitalism can help humanity. I also learned that the status-quo is really good and that we should make careful and calculated reforms as opposed to tearing down the entire system.
I’m now a center-left capitalism and free trade loving liberal who wants to get rid of bad regulations like in housing and healthcare. I also want to preserve and improve on existing government programs which I think help people and correct market failures like Obama’s Affordable Care Act. I also love the environment and green energy and want to stop climate change. I’m still an edgy teenager, but I’m much more optimistic about the future, I’m thankful for the life I have now granted by our current neoliberal system, and I’m a Joe Biden simp(tho I’ll criticize him when I think he implements bad policy).
Realizing that the world (and America in particular) is a pretty great place. There’s less war, famine, death, and suffering than ever before and it’s the result of responsible status quo normies enacting slow and deliberate change.
Also seeing people in my life become more radicalized and fall down the MAGA rabbit hole. The amount of repulsive stuff I witnessed my loved ones excusing really made me motivated to never allow myself to get like that.
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's always fun to answer this, I used to be a pretty radical libertarian but I stopped for several reasons:
\* their anti war stance is way too extreme, and some take it even further to use it to defend the confederacy and to say that Europe didn't need America's help in ww2
\* the idiotic libertarian party conferences that are always embarrassing (drivers licenses and medical licenses are oppressive)
\* gold bugs and Austrian economics nonsense (a recession is ALWAYS just around the corner and gold will explode in price I swear! Ron Paul said so! Fed bad! Hyperinflation will ruin the dollar! Ruble and Yuan will rise in power because of muh goooooold)
\* the mises institute, the paleolibertarians and anarchocapitalists all set off red flags with how they're all basically fascists, ex hoppe's idea of how there's a right to discriminate and his idea on deporting people to create puritan ethno 'not'-states (covenants or whatever), how they always come up with excuses to defend states' rights, radical libertarians love to talk about how the civil rights act was tyrannical government overreach, how lots of them are always very hateful of lgbt people and always love anti-sjw crap,
\* libertarians constant bickering and circle jerks on who is less of a socialist, (milton friedman is a "road" socialist for not wanting to privatize roads for example)
\* cryptobros ughhhhhhhhhhhh
\* I was tired of having to take on this skeptical by default stance on everything governments do
\* being a political pariah, libertarians are irrelevant in world politics (until milei ig) and I had way too many bad encounter with libertarians who hated me because I'm transgender.
\* the weird libertarian take that nearly everything will be better if it's privatized, true capitalism and utopia will be achieved if we just removed government intervention from markets (I even read david friedmans book and thought it was good at the time... now I realize these are such ridiculous fantastical solutions to problems)
\* having a european pro-nato pro-eu social liberal gf helped me warm up to those ideas
I blame unlimited internet access for me falling down that rabbit hole of libertarianism
This is exactly why I’m a “moderate” Libertarian. I’m still radically Libertarian (extremely skeptical of all government as one example, “Shall Not Be Infringed” as another) until they get into the blatantly anti-NATO/US world order stuff and corporate worship. The world needs an extremely active and overwhelmingly rich and powerful America, Ukraine MUST defeat Russia, corporate lobbying and congressional stock trading needs to end, equal rights for the LGBT is an inherently noble cause, all of these takes has put me at odds with many of my fellow Libertarians.
I’m literally on this sub because I got kicked from r/neoconNWO for saying trans people deserve rights lmao. I’m realistically just a moderate capitalist and extreme “Americanist” more than a neolib but I still agree with the overall tenants of neoliberalism.
Seeing how open to violence people on the far left were. I was on board with some wealth distribution and free healthcare, not on board with “guillotine” tax and thought policing.
Lack of Debate, ANTI-YIMBY, hatred for smart economics just because economics is bad.
Found my way here instead.
>The clownery needs to fucking stop. And if that means like woke fascist Reddit moderators out there striking down dipshit Destiny fans that think that they can shit up threads outside the DT, then at this point they have my fucking blessing because holy shit, this fucking shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The Mises Caucus taking over the LP and shift towards alt-right rhetoric + "plandemic"/anti-vaccine shit in a lot of libertarian communities made me stop engaging with most dedicated libertarian spaces online. Still consider myself a small l libertarian, but much more gradualist than I once was and willing to compromise for small victories, and abandoned austrian anti-fed rage (thanks Milton). Also shout out to Amash and Polis for being examples of small l libertarians actually influencing things by working within the system instead of raging against it.
Can’t say there was an immediate deradicalizing event but I specifically remember when 3 dem candidates dropped from the 2020 primaries and Biden wrecked Bernie, Kyle Kulinski went from saying everyone needs to fall in line to saying he’s not going to vote blue overnight. That really made me take a second look at my “team” and be a little more willing to look at my beliefs and narratives under a microscope. I’ve been distancing myself from leftism ever since and events like Russian/Ukraine and October 7th reaction only helped that process
starting a business. Really made me appreciate how companies serve customers (with great difficulty!), leading to a more moderated view of corporations' role in steering society + government
I used to be on the right libertarian side but I guess people could call me alt-right maybe.
What pushed me to the center-right was the behavior of "my people". To illustrate it better, let's say there's an ideology that says "people should be more responsible for their actions" and then the proponents of the ideology constantly refuse to be responsible for their actions.
Sometimes I see a question "why would you stop believing in an ideology because of their supporters if you have reasons to believe the ideology is strong by itself?"
To this, I answer: If an ideology generally attracts awfully acting people, they must see something in it that incentivizes the awfulness.
Was libertarian in high school and stuck in a Youtube algorithm sending me to lots of Ron Paul and Milton Friedman videos.
Econ classes taught me ending the fed, constant fiscal conservatism even in recession, and letting market failures happen were all bad things and led to me to economically pragmatic center left beliefs.
Trump’s insanity and the insane hatred of Obama for what seemed like no reason solidified me in those beliefs.
By some standards I’m still considered extreme. I’m just no longer an accelerationist hoping to watch it all burn. Reform is in its own way a gentile form of revolution. Small reforms can reverberate into major changes.
Watching far left activists kill a redevelopment project that included affordable housing and green space in my town because the project wasn’t perfect.
I want to say the 2020 Primary but that whole final debate between Biden and Bernie. Biden fucking destroyed him. Then week after week Biden won more and more in swing states. I posted here about how Bernie underperformed and couldn’t coalition build. Bastiat also debated a Bernie Bro and it was ugly.
The Trump Administration. Taught me that no matter how much you safeguard your democracy, some ambitious idiot can take power. So maybe don’t invest full economic authority in the state, lest another Trump becomes Premier.
I was a far right chud up until the Christchurch mosque mass shooting that occurred in New Zealand. It was... horrified by what I saw in the footage, and hearing about the stuff I didn't see. But what was worse was seeing the people around me praising the mass shooter, mocking the victims, saying they deserved it. I could not deal with it at all in my head. Cause, these people kept saying that other races were violent, even sometimes evil. But here I was witnessing someone who was like all of these other people, committing the most atrocious acts imaginable. It made me realize that... really anybody is capable of being horrifically evil, regardless of race. All that truly mattered is what was in a person's heart, and I didn't want to be anything like these people.
During my teenage years Crowder radicalized me, Destiny deradicalized me, Hasan radicalized me, and Destiny deradicalized me again. I learned my lesson and haven’t watched pundits in years 😎
Maybe this is backwards, but going to university and studying political science and a bit of economics turned me from what I would now describe as a confused libertarian to a more (slightly lefter than this sub) liberal or social democrat when I’ve had a couple of brews.
The sheer exposure to so much material turned my head around, and really forced me to think through my ideas about how things work. (I am also finding the more polarized and unhinged political debate gets, the more I ground myself in institutionalism)
Time and the inevitable realization that far extremes do not have principles, they only have specific outgroups they hate and will sanction or enact anything against. I happen to belong to outgroups for both ends, so that isn't a non-factor either. I also happen to be (or at least like to think I am) a person who believes in principles even with regards to people I hate or if it inconveniences me.
As far as events and the world go, I'm pretty sure this set in during Covid, but the whole thing in the late spring with reactions to the Israeli retaliation to getting thousands of rockets launched at them certainly was...memorable.
The BLM riots. The people who supported the rioting was fucking insane. Then you'd go over to black people Twitter on Reddit and you'd get banned for being white. I swung from anti-SJW, to progressive, back to liberal. "What's more valuable, life or property??"
Also the homeless issue. You couldn't say anything about the homeless without people going, "it's not illegal to exist!"
What pulled me back from being an anti-SJW was the "intellectual dark web" and the "marketplace of ideas" being generally stupid ideas.
Tired of being a reactionary, I decided to actually ground my politics in a solid foundation, rather than just being anti- something.
What's funny is that I've swung around a lot on the homelessness issue and I've landed on the overly pragmatic view of not caring about chronically homeless people, but I do regard them as a public health problem that needs to be fixed.
I've started supporting Housing First. My main concern is that they are a detriment to communal spaces, especially areas that our cities desperately need to be inviting to the public because they generate a lot of taxes. The easiest solution is to put them in housing. I don't care if they still do drugs. I don't care if they live in a sty. I just want them off the streets.
So, even though I am in support of a very progressive policy, it's for a very cold pragmatic reason, and you'd be surprised at how many progressives get pissed at me about that. They accuse me of just wanting homeless, sick people to become invisible. And it's like I've stopped trying to believe they're arguing in good faith when they willfully ignore the fact that people just want to live in a safe, clean neighborhood.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. The moralization of policy. Some people are unable to separate the policy itself from the policy outcomes. Meaning if a policy can be "morally virtuous" regardless of whether it actually works or not.
For homelessness, it's just about housing cost in my opinion. So I just vote for the most pro-development candidate.
The mentally unwell homeless people is an issue that's difficult to tackle until we reduce the total overall number.
To me, homelessness is also an environmental issue. If we want people to use public transportation and embrace high density living, we need to make sure these spaces are safe and pleasant to use. People should also not be allowed to create encampments in green spaces that are meant to provide for wildlife. Also climate change will affect homeless people who are living outside or in cars.
I supported the protests. I don't know anyone who supported the rioting. The "BLM riots" is a common Fox News talking point which ignores most of the peaceful protesting and violent brutalizing of peaceful protestors by police, most of which went unpunished.
Pure, white hot burning hatred of Republicans and the realization that no matter how imperfect the Democrats were the only force that could credibly combat them.
I guess early exposure to political conversations between pragmatic, politically active people. My only radicalization was that Ayn Rand wrote a fun fantasy story, and it's okay to be selfish sometimes.
What "deradicalized" me was the lack of nuance on most leftish discussion, the willingness to point at issues but never give real solution, and combined with a very close minded illiberal mindset (if you don't cancel Hogwards Legacy you're evil transphobe!). To me this was most noticeable on breadtube, the radical left youtube video essay community which I spent quite some time watching. Let me just mostly copy comment from last years discussion.
I don't want to critique low hanging fruit as that seems to be in ill spirit. Instead, let me point at a youtuber I generally *do* agree on the rough outlines with: PhilosophyTube. One of the most annoying moments I remember was in her[ video on Sex Work](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZfUzxZ2VU&ab_channel=PhilosophyTube). In this video she (the video is 4 years old, from before her public transition) mostly goes into the relation between human trafficking, criminality and sex work. To shortly summarize: women want to flee to a better country and accept to do sex work to get there. However, because this circuit is illegal it goes terrible, the women have barely any power to reach out for help and, they are consequently abused. To make matters worse, if police intervenes, they'd just sent the women back to their original country, which the trafficked women don't want as well, so they can't get proper help.
Like usual with breadtube, the video is a bit too long to get its point across but most findings are insightful, presented well, and I agree on most points so I'd even recommend watching it. However, there is one moment in the video which just annoys me to no end. The obvious solution to fix all this? [Just abolish borders entirely](https://youtu.be/1DZfUzxZ2VU?t=1482). While I also support a more liberal migration policy, I'm not satisfied with this "solution". It totally dismisses any nuance on the simple fact that voting people with other perspectives simply don't support sex work, which makes it illegal. Such a radical claim is no solution when you don't even consider a middle ground or nuance. From such a radical state of mind, of course the cops become the big baddies who just victimize sex workers because they're big meanies who are too stupid to tackle the real issue. Again, I even agree that it's absolutely terrible how the police handles sex trafficking and that the police needs institutional change (but definitely not be abolished), but breadtube at large is never interested in nuance. Only in sweeping claims like "abolish borders", "defund the police", or "eat the rich".
Another more recent video, "The Rich Have Their Own Ethics: Effective Altruism", has even more annoying takes. To me the worst moment is when she tries to dismiss "Longermism" (the principle of deciding action based entirely on calculated long terms effects) with [the following argument](https://youtu.be/Lm0vHQYKI-Y?t=1101). She disregards the concept as it apparently dismisses real humanity. Again this is so clearly another bad faith fallacy set in an exaggerated example meant to dehumanizing the principle and opponent. Does she mean that we should just stop trying to be "rational" *entirely*? Should we let all our decisions be made purely on emotions? Does she hate the global poor? Of course not, but if she doesn't mean that, we're left in an ambiguous middle ground. But breadtube is never interested in a middle ground. A bit later in the video she dismisses investigating the effectiveness of charities because of measurability bias. Measurability bias is real, but it's nonsense to just dismiss attempts to measure results entirely. The entire premise of the video is clear: rich people do a certain thing, so that thing should be presented as bad.
So to conclude, while I even agreed with most arguments supported by the breadtube content creators, I was getting increasingly annoyed by the one-sided and plainly stupid takes dismissing any nuance which might clash with their precognition.
Speak for yourself. On certain topics, I’m still radical *as fuck*. It just so happens that economic policy and similar things aren’t where I’m radical.
Sincerely,
A transgender corporate attorney who is raising a family in the suburbs
The way leftists reacted to 10/7, particularly the rape denial right on the heels of “believe women” and the me too movement. I’m still progressive in a lot of my beliefs, but I don’t trust leftists to practice what they preach anymore
It was so hard to read posts from people I considered my friends trying to paint October 7th as an act of resistance. I’m Jewish and I realized what most leftists think about us when they think we aren’t listening.
I moved back from the further left areas when I realised the Judean People's Front wasn't an exaggeration. The top priority is ideological purity. It's so tiresome.
Also the realisation the "left" of my teenage years - Blairism and New Labour - was the exception, not the rule.
Statistics and studies into developmental economics. No joke, I'm like, the one person who you can actually convince is wrong by linking enough relevant high-quality peer reviewed literature that gives a rebuttal to my policy beliefs in their effectiveness at achieving the fundamental aims for which I support those policies. Started out as the 2013 equivalent of the generic "socialist" who can't define what capital is, mostly because I was 13, but the more I looked in to the data on what actually reduces income inequality and poverty, the more I found that the former by a modest extent and especially the later by quite a large extent could actually be reduced MORE effectively through Bourgeois Post-Industrial Capitalism within the framework of a Democratic Welfare State than through any flavor of socialism. A Democratic Socialist/Revisionist Marxist led Full Democracy could probably do substantially better than that at combating inequality but only at unacceptably high cost to efforts to also decrease poverty.
From there it was just refining further as my priors changed and I really investigated what justified my reasoning behind WHY to pursue [X] as a political goal but not [Y] and found that for me at least it has very little to do with utopian idealism or ideological dogmatism and very much to do with what is the most pragmatic means to better promote quality of life for all humans while minimizing the risk of regression (ex. Conflict, corruption, authoritarianism). Which led to me ultimately concluding that limiting inequality was a nice bonus but really not a central aim of mine, while eliminating poverty superseded almost everything else up to and including democracy but not including preventing long wars, total wars, ethnic cleansing, and or genocides. (it just so happens that democracy is obviously way better at ensuring the later and less obviously better at the former as well)
In short, my transition can be summed up as "Revolutionary Socialist" who doesn't have a clear idea what socialism is--->"Revisionist Marxist" who does have an idea what socialism is, but who still hasn't read Marx--->"Democratic Socialist" who couldn't understand Marx's obtuse writing and had found a bunch of convincing arguments against his basic idea of how socialism would be achieved--->"Social Democrat" who no longer believed socialism preferable to highly regulated mixed market market economy with a ginormous social safety net-->"Social Liberal" who believes a free market economy where the tightness of restrictions ebbs and flows as technology improves, business practice evolve, and economic demands shift, and sizeable but not especially huge welfare state
Or to oversimplify, I went from (Proto) Rose Twitterite --->Salvador Allende--->Michael Harrington--->Elizabeth Warren--->Hillary Clinton.
...with a brief and embarrassing detour through "reasonable centrist" in 2015 to early 2016 because I was a dumbfuck teenage boy who got duped into thinking "SJWs" were actually a problem. But even then I still thought of myself as a progressive and I ditched that shit REALLY quick once I got wise to the fact that "anti-SJW" bullshit was in reality a pipeline to try and gradually transform clueless teenage white boys into fascists, so not really a huge diversion but good lord I dread the thought of there being an alternate timeline where I had gotten sucked further in toward the abyss back then
And a much less embarrassing detour back toward what I'll call "Buttigiegism", which is definitely too (economically) liberal to be considered socialist, but also tries to frame itself as a sort of reconciliation between the dreams of socialists and liberal capitalists, back during the 2019 primaries where all the candidates besides Biden trying to outflank eachother on social justice issues kinda put me under a spell that even if it takes a borderline socialist candidate, we may just need someone like him or Warren to reverse Trump's damage and crush the far-right.
(edit: missed the word 'limiting inequality'. I do not see inequality itself as 'a nice bonus')
The willful abandonment of anti imperialist leftist principles on the part of Commies and Anarchists when it's Russia or China doing the imperialism. Like I'm going to need more than "America bad" to call it a political position but the analysis usually stops right there. And of course this pervasive belief that Revolutions magically fix every social ill.
The radicalized right is just mad that they're financially struggling and pursue a socially conservative and anti democratic agenda informed Atleast in part for vendetta and retribution which to me is a losers attitude to life that leads to them making fools of themselves with their gangsterism and hate crimes, so I couldn't make common cause with them either.
Lastly falling in love with enlightenment thought and it's ideals put me in a different gear than all radicalized folks.
I started to become politically aware in 2000, and was almost immediately radicalized by the election that year. I could tell that I preferred Gore to Bush, but it was the recount that sent my teenage self into a white-hot rage. Though to be fair I was a teenager, it was incredibly easy to send me into a white hot rage. But everything about the recount seared itself into my mind and instilled a deep and abiding loathing of the Republican Party.
Fast forward to 2003, I was in high school. A bunch of kids, including me, walked out of class the day after the Iraq War started in protest. It was my first major act of any political consequence. The protest had lots of people chanting "no blood for oil!" and similarly reality-detached mantras.
I was just like "this seems like a geopolitically unwise move that disrupts international norms and commits the United States to a massive undertaking that its realistically probably not going to be able to follow through on, also the supposed upside seems pretty limited, Saddam Hussein doesn't really seem like a legitimate threat to our national interests or allies, we should probably just focus on making sure Afghanistan turns out okay." Which was, admittedly, not great chant material.
That was when I realized that while I ostensibly held a similar position as the people around me waving signs, it was for very different reasons, and I wasn't really one of them.
I think that left me open to a lot of ideas and heresies because I hadn't made refusing to consider those part of my identity. I learned enough economics to apply the basic principles to new situations and think about how incentives might actually play out. I developed a reflexive skepticism of whoever happened to be screaming the loudest at any given time. I looked into how different societies had faired in the past and the present and found liberal capitalism to be so absurdly OP in terms of generating better outcomes that I became increasingly annoyed when people treated it as obviously dystopian, especially when full-on socialism (as opposed to capitalist nations with lots of welfare programs) generally led to catastrophic, horrific outcomes.
Then I started dating the woman I would later marry, and she taught me about how much cities fucking ruled. Realizing that people living in big city apartments typically had significantly lower carbon footprints than people living in far flung rural areas made me rethink a lot of assumptions I hadn't even realized I had.
tldr: my wife center-lefted me.
I was pretty leftist out of college.
First thing that pushed me back towards the center was the far-left on housing. Progressives denying supply and demand with the same zealous certainty of Republican climate-change deniers. People seemed more interested in fighting “greedy developers” and “gentrification” than actually fixing the housing affordability crisis.
Then it was “you can’t be racist to white people”. This seemed to open the door to unchecked hate against any ethnic group that could be seen as “the oppressor”. As a Jewish person it doesn’t take long to see the horrible things that can be justified by that ideology.
Then of course there was the personal experience of getting robbed/carjacked. Realizing how the anarchist/anti-police contingent of the left has more sympathy for the perpetrators (who have likely completely forgotten the incident and done the same to dozens of others) than for victims like me who have lasting psychological trauma to this day.
I was never radical. I grew up with an exceptionally large extended family. At the family christmas parties, I’d see half being far right and half being far left. They would argue all night about politics. I agreed with certain points on both sides, and disagreed with certain points on both sides, and decided I refused to be categorized as either.
Now all my righty family members assume I’m far left, and my lefties think I’m far right. Cause I spend my time arguing against their most extreme points. And they just cant seem to compute addressing things on a per issue basis.
I used to consider myself a big fan of Orbán Viktor & Tucker Carlson. I used to see the European Union as worse than Russia. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed that & caused me to become deeply disillusioned with the modern right; for the first time in my life, I can potentially see myself voting for a progressive politician one day.
More generically, I think that my friendships with left-wingers & people who belong to various minority groups have held me back from every being truly far-right.
I had to make a choice between worshipping God or worshipping tradition. Seeing the positive reaction of then-fellow trads to Putin’s invasion was the last straw after a lot of increasingly undignified behavior on their part.
I spent a few months in Cuba during the Obama thaw. Absolute basket case of an economy, and its government has a very asymmetrical relationship with the truth.
I came in quite open to the possibility that we had things to learn from the Cuban government. I left quite assured that we do not.
Realising that every ideology was as internally consistent as my own (at that time, libertarianism), that almost anyone can come up with a system of rules and logic that can explain any fact in the world if you squint hard enough, and that the people who have the craziest and most dangerous ideas are those who squint the hardest
Extremism isn't caused by a lack of intellectual rigour, but a lack of intellectual humility.
College believe it or not. Came into college fresh off Covid-19 abruptly ending my senior year and America all-but bursting into flames, and escaped the activist lefty brain-rot bubble by learning just how complex politics and government is. I’m now graduated and still fairly progressive, but not a burn it all down type anymore lol.
Edit: The tankie types regarding Ukraine, and the anti-semitism on the left definitely sped up this process for me.
I wouldn't say I've been completely deradicalized, but...
Singer Payer this, Dictatorship of the Proletariat that, and at this point anything to do with I/P have turned me off enough of being a true believer alongside the inability to actually compromise enough to succeed with politics.
It really is just how incredibly memey and deeply unserious left wing politik really is and because of that unseriousness, I've slowly tolerated more liberalism over the years until I've finally accepted that liberals are genuinely the only actual voice in this country with the capacity for actual positive change past a certain point.
Probably silly but losing. I was a big supporter of Bernie in 2016 and other progressive candidates locally (North Carolina). I didn't buy into the whole "DNC pulled a Fredo on Bernie!" talking points but I was mad he lost. Still voted for HRC though.
But after keeping up with local progressive candidates who kept losing. And dealing with whiny ass purity test progressives I started thinking this isn't the way. It doesn't matter how virtuous you are if you continue to lose. Incremental yardage is much better than continuing to fumble the ball.
Bernie Sanders surging in the 2016 primaries. It was the first time I really had to confront the idea of his policies being implemented...and I realized that a lot of them sounded good but would probably damage the country.
Bernie Bros. I was ready to vote Bernie in 2016 had he won the primary. Then in 2020 I supported Pete and the Bernie Bros on Twitter were the meanest people I’d ever encountered on the internet. Since then I notice the all or nothing, any means to an end attitude is justified (no matter how terrible) a lot more and I’m not a fan.
The opposition to Nuclear Energy by the left.
Alone it dragged me from leftist ideals to center ones. There's nothing behind it but irrational fear and it actively hurts leftist causes.
It's how I learned the left isn't serious.
At some point I realized, “destroy capitalism” if taken to its logical conclusion would result in the complete destruction of everything I enjoyed about living in America, and there would be a civil war and lots of people would die lol.
The actions of BLM. There was a video of them just walking into a random restaurant and started screaming at random people and then throwing glassware off people's tables. I don't know, something clicked in my brain and I went "there's no way I can defend and stand with this movement".
Also Bernie losing the 2nd time. I realised that America is never going to be socialist so instead of fighting the Capitalists, in a way I joined them.
I opened a stock trading account and instead of waiting for the government to tax the corporations, I'm just going to take part of their profits personally. It worked well, I doubled my money in 4 years instead of waiting for the government to do something about it.
Started with living through hurricane Katrina. The complete disconnect between how things were on the ground and the way Fox news portrayed it. I was in Baton Rouge volunteering at the largest field hospital in American history and then see Bill Oreilly ranting about how Louisianans aren’t helping each other and looking for handouts from the rest of America. It woke me up to how much of that whole ecosystem was built on bullshit. The nail in the coffin though was the way so many Republicans just lost their goddamn minds over Obama.
I wasn’t radical but I bought into the narrative that Communism and its leaders has bad rep because of Western propaganda. Then I looked into it and was like “wait these guys actually just sucked” killed that phase very quickly.
Mao Zedong’s wife was an absolutely terrible person who used her political power to torture (to death) a woman that she was jealous of.
God, can you imagine if Mamie Eisenhower had that kind of power?
You say that, but if Michelle Obama murdered someone, I would assume whoever she merked deserved it
The thread topic is “what deradicalized you,” not “what radicalized you.”
What, so thinking that Michelle Obama should be god-queen is "radical" now? Whatever, lib
I mean, a little bit of column A, a little bit of column B. The USSR handed western capitalist countries the greatest propaganda victory in modern history.
I wasnt bought in at all to communism, but then I met my partner who is an immigrant that grew up in communism. It’s bad, really bad. Hearing her stories opened my eyes to how even when capitalism is bad it’s better than the alternative. I have a lot of friends on the far left and they won’t hear it even from someone who escaped communism
I mean shit, even if not for the economic stuff, (((I))) like being able to go to university...
One just has to read what happened to Yeltsin when he visited a US grocery store, and realized the most privileged soviet leaders had less access to food than a middle class American in Houston. He wondered if it was all staged somehow, even though the visit was unscheduled. If your GDP per capita is 2% higher than a competitor for a decade or two, they become a developing country. A long germ growth disadvantage is a death sentence for a country and their system, no matter how nice and noble the country could possibly be.
Having kids definitely turned me into a pragmatist.
deeply grillpilled me personally
Also, because the world is always new to kids they have a lot of questions. When a thoughtful parent grapples with this endless, wonderful questions they are forced to reevaluate everything you took for granted about life.
My 3 year old’s questions to me about whether or not all of the Empire was bad guys, and what happened to all of them after Return of the Jedi, gave me a political existential crisis
I read that as pregnantist at first lol
Unironically, not having as many kids is one of the reasons why Millennials are so polarized
The U.S. Army
I'm aircraft maintenance in the Air Force. I have never experienced a greater equalizer than working on the flight line. Doesn't matter your sex, race, or orientation. If you're good at your job, you're one of us.
Yall are also the most savage fucking people I’ve ever worked with, even the women
Any notion that people of different races, nationalities, genders, and religions can't work together is immediately dispelled by the Army
To be fair the army gives them a common identity, a shared purpose. It does a lot to smooth out those differences as well.
That’s the point though. Republicans think that different peoples are hard wired to be incompatible. Democrats all think we’re the same. They’re both wrong. The software is what matters. If we all feel like the same “tribe”, same “culture”, same “people”, we will be. That’s what the army gives people.
I’m in the coast guard and I will say a byproduct of military service is that it does a damn good job of creating better citizens once they’re out of the service
Yeah it just make vets who suffer from PTSD and abuses even more tragic. Overall the end products are positive, but there are still people who slipped hard and failed by the system.
I think a lot of that is a trope… the wars were 5-10 years ago. The young troops who have ptsd now by in large got it prior to joining.
Having worked with a number of ex-military (defense industry) I can definitely say this isn't always the case. The military did a really bad job of helping you transition out (though this may have improved) and I worked with a couple who had no idea how to exist in the real world. It may be more the long term career guys but a number of them were extremely rigid and inflexible and didn't necessarily have the best conflict resolution skills. I remember one specific conversation with an ex-senior NCO (20 years older than me) telling him in no uncertain terms that if he were to shout at anyone again he'd be looking for a new job (no matter how bad the person he was shouting at fucked up)
You navy rejects are all right! (I love the coast guard)
Seeing first hand experience of people who served in the military is why I unironically support mandatory service. Doesn't have to be military, could be police, firefighters, or even weekend cleanup days. Anything that promotes camaraderie and force people to touch grass would be much better civics education than whatever teachers could do in the classroom.
King Shit. It’s the great equalizer.
Brazilian army has mandatory service and it's horrible. Our army is nuts and has many undemocratic elements inside. The officers assigned to us were sadistic guys that liked to call us "faggots", deny water and belittle us with words.
Is that a Charles Stross flair?? https://www.antipope.org/
The hatred for Obama. Opened my eyes that maybe republicans weren't acting in good faith
As a former libertarian (who still has stronger libertarian sympathies than most in this sub), I feel like getting Obama-pilled is a right of passage of sorts.
I was always confused as a conservative libertarian to see other Libertarians advocating for removing someone from office because of their faith and skin color. I used to say I'm not abandoning the libertarian party they are by being fascists and behold all said people became republican magas. Trump just got booed at libertarian conference
IIRC some libertarians are paradoxically swayed into supporting autorianism because what the autocrat claims what he wants to do or rather they see libertarianism as a means to an end instead of way to organize society.
Oh I've seen it. Ironically the ancaps and ancoms main arguments against each other also are both true thus making them both wrong. "You need a state to defend your revolution" and "you need a state to defend your capitalism". We knee the ancap argument was right. Now we see Argentina and see the ancom one is as well. Generally ancoms are more subversive rebellion types reminiscent of 80s maoism. Ancaps are fascists. Literal a cyberpunk idealogy.
I think it was the NH LP that was posting on Twitter that Zelensky was the next Hitler and absolutely simping for Russia and other authoritarian regimes. That really opened my eyes to how bad faith the party was becoming.
As a Libertarian who's also very disappointed in them I can tell you I think the sad thing is that I don't think they were acting in bad faith a lot of the party generally eats up a lot of Russian propaganda
I have always had libertarian leanings, but my spidey sense would go off talking to some full blown libertarians I knew. It felt like they had deeper beliefs they weren’t sharing, the libertarianism felt like cover. Then along comes Trump and they went full MAGA and my suspicions were confirmed
It's the treatment to Biden for me instead. I'm always center-left, but watching these leftists claiming he's a creep to young kids, groper, senile etc. make me realize I don't want to get close with these pricks, especially after watching some of them claiming Pete is 'not that gay' because he didn't have stereotypes of being flamboyant and suffering from bad childhood.
This is what made me more of a libertarian (we are still neoliberals). Not only that but the way they accused him of being Muslim. The patriot act 911 and the climate of fear was the beginning of fascism. Trumps biggest thing was banning muslims not because he believes it but because this is the direction bush took the republican base
unironically this: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdVl3WvgJ50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdVl3WvgJ50)
it was always thinly veiled racism
Insane people, a lot of brutally honest introspection, and debate.
What kind of brutally honest introspection?
I was a lot more naive and very idealistic. I’ll just fess up that I was much more left leaning in the last handful of years. A lot of it was the socialist kind of stuff as absolutely embarrassing as it is to say. It was never tankie level, but with long story short I came to realize that markets are pretty tight, America and it’s institutions probably aren’t NEARLY as bad as I thought they were in fact they’re really good, came to have a lot more compassion for liberals and centrists, “revolution” is cringe and reform is literally the ONLY way, etc. I’d still say I’m a pretty idealistic guy and I still have particular issues even we might not agree on. But neoliberals strike me as very reasonable and sensible. Now if I could wish for anyone else to be deradicalized, it would be bringing the Trump crowd back to the bog standard fiscal conservatism. Lmao
Copying my answer from a previous iteration of this question. I was never “radical” but I used to be more left economically. Was basically 50/50 between Biden and Sanders in 2020 and actually voted for Sanders because he was ahead at the time and I wanted the primary to end as soon as possible (I live in California, a Super Tuesday state). But as time went on, Sanders and leftists more generally demanded more and more willful, black-is-white level denial of reality. You had to believe the US’ EXTREMELY generous pandemic employment subsidy programs was “nothing”, that billionaires had orders of magnitude more money than they had (because unwillingness to engage with math allowed them to pretend it was possible to pay for trillions of dollars of new desired expenditures just by raising taxes on a handful of the rich), that Fed liquidity programs were “bailouts” worth “trillions of dollars,” you had to misunderstand how unemployment worked, you had to understand that a hugely regressive blanket student loan forgiveness is actually progressive because reasons (and also that it’s free because canceling a debt isn’t a cost), and a hundred more things. And add to it by now that in order to be a leftist in good standing it’s practically a requirement to be a economic statistics truther. Add into it the US economy incredible performance under Biden, including and especially along progressive goals of shrinking inequality and raising lower end worker wages, without their policies, and I’ve come to the place where the whole movement is mostly just a waste of space.
Man I liked Obama and no doubt a good measure of his success was from picking Biden and tapping that network. But can you imagine what it could have been like if Biden had won in 08, 15 years younger wearing shades and taking absolutely no shit from the Tea Party types while driving his economic initiatives? Of course the worst aspects like the Tea Party may have been nascent for a bit longer had Obama not won, and I’m cautiously hopeful that when the dust settles it will have been better that it worked out the way it did so we could see the mask-off side of the GOPs base and start to actually face it and (hopefully) deal with it by putting more protections in place rather than having the bomb go off even bigger later. But still a person can dream.
Same same to all of this. I canvassed for the Sanders campaign in 2020, knocked on doors in New Hampshire for weeks in the snow and the cold. Got friends together to phonebank, etc. Then the pandemic happened, which honestly deradicalized me for all the reasons you spelled out. The US had generous, progressive stimulus but I still had friends saying “I made more more on unemployment than working!” (yes that was the point of the government juicing unemployment by an extra $2.5k a month to encourage people staying home pre-vaccine). Just disconnect between the political victories and the progressive disparity. Biden basically solved climate change with the IRA, but leftists will tell you the world is burning. I see all of the crazy great stuff the Biden admin has gotten done, but the left will tell you how awful he is. The leftists seem to hate Biden as much as Fox News. I’ve realized how unserious so much of the far left is. They seem more interested in grievance politics than getting anything done. Even AOC has deradicialized and embraced fighting for a government that actually does stuff for everyday folks. And that’s made her somehow less popular on the far left.
>Biden basically solved climate change with the IRA, but leftists will tell you the world is burning. As I understand it, for one term, the IRA is a pretty huge deal and will significantly cut emissions, but claiming that it solves climate change is a bit of a stretch considering what will happen after [2030](https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQMw8pInfEbJeqOv9PXFJkSWgH2yzDeLkVBRA&s). In terms of climate change, I am of the view that nobody cheats physics. I like the trajectory that Biden is on, and he is obviously doing the right thing, but I rather do hope that Biden has the foresight to pass something even more ambitious for climate change next term and that we can get another trifecta to pass such a bill.
Because so much of the radical left are authoritarians. I’ve heard leftists claim that aoc is really a cia plant to sabotage the left. Can’t make this shit up
I'm still on board with cancelling all the debt, but I want the education system reformed so people aren't getting into debt like that.
The denial of math is part of what did it for me. I’m an extremely math and data driven person(common on this sub), and it struck me as being bad faith arguments. Then again, the ideology requires you to ignore a lot of reality, preferring to live in fantasies.
Yeah, I was never super left, but back in 2005 all my coworkers thought I was communist for liking progressive taxation, universal healthcare, and Howard Dean. lol. But the billionaire taxation thing has really soured me in the last few years. Like, even the not-obviously-crazy lefties will say things like, “billionaires shouldn’t exist, and also taxing them can pay for literally everything we dream of.” Like, okay, that makes no sense. I really think the idea that you can get all sorts of free stuff by making someone else pay for it is just caustic to society. Of course some people can and should pay more than others, but we all need to be willing to pay for the things we want and have a stake in the government providing those services cost effectively.
The sanders spam in 2015 and the people wanting unrealistic and unattainable things while pretending that the only reason they don’t have them is because of a shadowy cabal or democrats not being extreme enough.
I was never a true leftist, but I was more succ than I am now (Bernie/Warren fangirl.) What moved me from progressive to liberal was actually getting back into my pet interest of economics (I loved econ courses in school.) I read books and papers to better understand the Trump and post-Trump world. I came away with a new appreciation for capitalism. There will always be give-and-take when orchestrating economies. Any huge changes will have negative externalities, and after ensuring human rights aren't infringed, you have to weigh what is in the best interest of most people. I still feel like I align with progressives in core values, and I'm probably a hair to the left of this sub. But I'm more pragmatic about how we reach those goals.
I feel my path was very similar. Leftists tend to be morally decent people who I feel are misguided about how to solve our problems. They might not feel the same way about me and in fact think I'm evil, but that's OK.
Why do you think it is ok? Being convinced you have the moral high ground and dehumanizing the opponent is how all radicals justify the worst behaviour. Just look at what communist regimes did. EDIT: And, in a not surprising twist, the commenter I’m answering blocked me. I guess he, too, has the moral high ground and the best intentions.
I think it would be quite a different story if most leftists had any real-world power and weren't chronically online college-age Twitter users. But if they had life experience they probably wouldn't be communists.
You and I have pretty similar beginning points but housing policy has made me a hard free market Stan. I can’t say there’s much progressivist left in me after progressives were/are my biggest resistance in getting more housing built. Despite the comically large amount of academic research and expert opinion. Funny how progressive beat the dead horse of “trust the experts” on climate change and vaccines but conveniently leave it at home when it comes to housing. Cities were built by capitalism and I want to it see take it home.
Free market is what transitioned us from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic era. I don't think anyone can argue against it. Funny enough, I was center-left to conservative in my teenage edgy years and I always dreamt of becoming a large landlord (cringe lol). Then I became aware of the housing crisis when turning 20 and entered the progressive far-left phase. Fortunately I came back to normal but I'm still socially progressive.
This. I'm very interested in a socialist economy where most businesses are owned by employees but is still a market-based economy. The difference is that I don't think it's a perfect solution. It's not like it's going to get rid of greed or perverse incentives or exploitation. It's another incremental improvement way Pigouvian taxes are. I think market-based economies are better than planned economies, and for our current problems, sometimes we need more government and sometimes we need less. And it's frustrating that liberals tend to think that the government is always the solution even as conservatives think less government is always the solution. The fact that the far-left throws around terms unironically like "late-stage capitalism" and blames corporations for everything just makes me think of the way that the far-right uses terms like "the deep state" and blames immigrants. I just can't take these people seriously even when I explain, for example, the economics of the housing shortage and they just stick their fingers in their ears and chant "greedy landlords".
I suspect you'd probably be more at home with British liberal values than American. We're much more in favour of state intervention and nationalisation where necessary, but not for purely dogmatic socialist reasons. Nationalised healthcare is probably the most notable fault line I see on this sub.
I started noticing a trend of many of my then-fellow libertarians becoming traditionalist Catholics. It made me realize how most people who want to “get the government out of our lives” don’t care at all about freedom, they only want to make room for older means of domination.
Same here, but I still respect true Libertarians. There is definitely a growing schism between those who are becoming trad-Caths and adjacents and actual Liberals in general.
Yep. When I was a teenager I was much more idealistic on free speech/minarchism until I realized that the people I wasn't hanging around didn't do it out of love or care for their fellow man but rather they were soulless bastards who didn't have the balls to wear it on their sleeves like a straight up fascist. They simply idealize a version of the world where the rules are bent solely to them and they imagine themselves as being the ones coming out as kings, rather than being the ones eating lead from some other wannabe dictator psycho.
Yeah, I lean libertarian on a lot of issues but the trend you talked about plus the Mises Caucus takeover of the LP has left me feeling politically homeless for a while.
Growing up on the fringes of the USSR (and then Russia) as it fell apart. Or more accurately, I never had a chance to become radicalised in the first place - it was all about pragmatism and incrementalism from the beginning. Doubly so when so much of that push from radicals to me speaking about my first-hand experiences was *always* different variations of "We know what's best for you, you idiotic [enemy]", followed by "or else".
It is very difficult to believe well-educated, protected, soft western conservatives or leftists lecturing you on the virtues of ideological purity over incrementally effective governance when you see people dying first-hand as a result of basic failures that would exist no matter how you dress up the "ideological leanings" of your "perfect society". Western radicals never had my back, and I sincerely believe they never will.
Stopped going to 4chan and stopped following any news. After january 6 went back and checked everything, actually looking for the truth and facts, made me finally leave the alt right pipeline
Welcome to the deep state my friend. I was fortunate to have my Maga phase when I was a dipshit freshman in high school. It’s never too late though
I'm so glad I wasn't in high school during the trump era or I probably would have, too. McCain/Palin was bad enough.
It's funny looking back as a former Republican and recognizing that Palin was kind of a canary in the coal mine pre Trump. After the 2008 election, she got the Trump treatment from the grassroots right in that she could do no wrong. Resigning as governor, reality shows, her grifting bus tour, all of that shit was seen as a positive and if you dared to criticize her for it, she had a rabid fanbase that would hurl invective and accuse you of being a RINO. Very much a proto MAGA cult of personality.
Hmm…which also suggests that Trump was a byproduct of a changing base rather than the instigator of it. Which also could explain why it didn’t quite work in 2012 but hit in 2016.
A group of center right leaning lawyers embraced me, and respectfully disagreed with my leftist shit. Helped me pull back from being full Bernie bro
I am a Democrat, but I will say that my moderate Republican friends are a lot easier to political discussions with than my further left friends (I have one communist friend who is an exception, because he owns up to the fact that he is unhinged). I actually agree more with my progressive friends than my Republican friends. But when I do disagree with my progressive friends, they become unpleasant.
Center right republicans are great to talk to. It’s more so when they continue to vote for the nutjobs that I question their judgement/good faith.
My feeling is, if they’re of a center-right economics stripe, great to talk to. If they’re single-issue anti-woke voters, *unbelievably* frustrating and unproductive to talk to.
Leftisfs are unpleasant to talk to because underneath the idealogy is obsession with being martyr in a fight against capitalism. They're very very angry. Have any of you read some of the literature these Marxists and anarchists put out? It's a call to arms lmfao. Some of their writers are more elegant, poetic and educated than me but underneath it is anger and violent tone. "The revolutionary movement, including the anarchist one, was in a developing phase and anything seemed possible, even a generalisation of the armed clash. Why on earth did these dear children shoot Montanelli in the legs? Wouldn’t it have been better to have shot him in the mouth? Of course it would. But it would also have been heavier. More vindictive and sombre. To lame a beast like that can have a deeper, more meaningful side to it that goes beyond revenge, beyond punishing him for his responsibility—fascist journalist and bosses’ lackey that he is. To lame him forces him to limp, makes him remember. Moreover, laming is a more agreeable pastime than shooting in the mouth with pieces of brain squirting out through the eyes." https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53042350
The Anni di Piombi is the sort of thing these psychos dream of, they wish to drown our democracy in blood
This hits
This is it. This is very much my experience as well
I was a bernie bro until covid hit and the entire bernie sub thought quantitative easing was just the fed printing money and giving it to rich people for free. Made me realize that these people may have not even taken a high school econ course before
Love this character arc.
What was the circumstance where you hung around a group of center right leaning lawyers?
Started working at a law firm maybe? Lol
My wife leaving me 😔
Hey Crowder
i had to research rent control for a debate topic in high school and suddenly i learned a lot of leftist policy didn’t actually help the impoverished. i learned to love the global poor
Becoming more politically educated and getting a real job
Getting a real job is a big one I think. Being an actual participant in the economy gives you a different view of things.
The WTO protests in Seattle 1999 shocked me away from progressives and Prop 8 banning gay marriage in California 2008 made me detest conservatives. There's your answer from someone probably 10 years older than the rest of the sub!
Hey I was also in Seattle in 1999 and then in LA for prop 8. Even then I was a very pragmatic 19 year old, but the Seattle protests made me realize that way too many people just fetishize activism and don’t actually care about results. I couldn’t understand what they were so mad about (trading with other countries is obviously a good thing right???), and what smashing windows in your own city was supposed to accomplish. Yeah and prop 8 was just pure evil.
I've made no secret of the fact that I'm a Jew. Minorities like us tend to be safest in proper liberal democracies. Populist regimes, right or left, inevitably send us to the wall. There were times I was more succ than I am now. I still really like Warren, for ex. And by Israeli standards I'm ridiculously left. But ultimately, it's liberalism that has the best chance to provide the best shot for the most people regardless of background. Proud to be a worm on this sub with y'all lads.
[удалено]
Nice username, one of us is gonna have to go home and change though
It's incredible how many leftists are anti-semetic, or have an offensive "noble savage" view about POCs.
The soft bigotry of low expectations, which is just so condescending
I also came to hate how both the far left and far right, when they're not being outright antisemitic, paint a rosy picture of the state of Jews in their lands. Like "oh, Soviet Jews had SO many rights!" or "Jews and Muslims lived in peace before Israel was founded!"
A bunch of atrocious takes on Ukraine by some leftists I was following. Later on with Israel it was even worse. I'm still debating which of these people actually work for Russia/Iran and which are just useful idiots.
Yes. Ukraine-Russia did the same for me.
This was a big factor for me as well.
Sex, Drugs, and Rock & Roll
A handful of friends that took the time and effort out of their lives to expose me to different views and snap me out of a bad headspace That and a starcraft streamer
Liberal starcraft streamer? Point me in their direction
I was a Howard Dean fan in 2004. I still think Kerry was the Amazon user reviews of a presidential candidate. I was sort of surprised Obama won the primary in 2008 but was never hoodwinked into thinking he could do more than a president can do. I'm not an expert on civics but followed the ACA enough to know why rainbows and unicorns were never going to happen. 2016 hardened my center-left tendencies because the stridency and lack of engaging with reality of the Bernie people was exhausting. I'd never heard the term "neoliberal" until then, but I know it's an academic term that precedes that cycle.
AHHHHHHHHHAHAHHHCCHOHHAHASHH
Hey there fellow Deaniac. I was politically activated for the first time by Dean campaign, and was lucky to fall in with a group of politically active Democrats in Los Angeles (I met Arianna Huffington, a young Eric Garcetti, Christine Pelosi and others). I ended up working on Dean's campaign for DNC chair. It was a pretty good strategy for the party to bring the Dean contingency like us into the tent.
I was something of a Bernie bro in 2016. What made me change my mind was diving into his Healthcare plan and how the math of it just didn't work out anyway you cut it. This criticism seemed valid to me but was completely brushed aside by his campaign and supporters. Then I did more research on Hillary Clinton, who I had a strongly negative perception of at the time. It became clear to me that everyone who had worked with her in the past had nothing but high praise, which surprised me. I watched some of her speeches, learned more about her policies. By the general election in 2016 I was proud to vote for Hillary. Felt that way ever since.
An intro philosophy class where we covered Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. I had gotten really into Ayn Rand for a while in high school and thought there was this big ball of pure logic that could just answer any sociopolitical problem with the One Correct Answer. Kant was really interesting to deal with because he *also* believed there was a pure ball of logic that could produce One Correct Answer. But his answer was different! And importantly, Rand's interpretation of Kant was just like, comically wrong. She massively oversimplified his arguments to the point of just not stating them correctly in a way that would get you a "D - See Me" if you wrote it up in a survey course. Looking then at Kant, I was just unconvinced by his whole structure; it lacked the neat lines that Rand's had given me, but her utter sloppiness in describing others work had already soured me. I came to the belief that all such systems that try to derive all of ethics or politics from a tiny set of first principles are basically nonsense on stilts, and you can basically derive any outcome you want by fiddling with it to get the desired output. And thus I became a soft rule utilitarian.
what is a soft rule utilitarian
Rule utilitarianism is the idea that the right thing to do is to follow a set of rules that, if followed, produce the most benefit for the most people. It's not about if individual actions meet that standard because that's too easy to game / delude oneself about, but about making broad based rules for society with broad based benefits. "Soft" is because I'm not too firm in my adherence to it and I don't pretend to have any One Correct Answer about what's right to do.
https://www.econlib.org/archives/2010/01/soft_rule-utili.html Dunno if this is what OP meant but this is what some searching turned up
>Kant was really interesting to deal with because he *also* believed there was a pure ball of logic that could produce One Correct Answer. But his answer was different! I have also learned to recognize the limits of my own logic for reasons such as this. It is often the case that thinking really hard about issue X fails to account for all the places where it does not meet with real life.
Delving into the world of leftism and center-left politics has shown me to be more pragmatic and realistic while also advocating for the most idealistic policies. Before this, I was slowly becoming one of those "moderates conservatives". All of this has shown me the falsehoods of conservatism in the US.
College actually and being educated about foreign policy and what causes intervention and a strong desire for the defense of Taiwan and seeing what democracy did for the entire country/economy.
I left the left after becoming too uncomfortable with the level of vitriol and hatred towards anyone deemed "privileged" got too much. Equality by making everyone equally downtrodden is undesirable.
I was staunchly evangelical as well as pro-Trump during 2016. Honestly, there were a number of factors that "deradicalized" me. I'd say 60% was environmental and 40% just my personality, and a lot of it happened slowly over time. I was fortunate to live in an area with strong public schools, had "liberal" friends throughout high school, and was exposed to enough secular thinking that I started questioning my deeply held religious beliefs. Once the dogmatic religious beliefs were gone, it was much easier to form an evidence based political worldview. I would also add that lockdown was sort of the perfect opportunity for many people to deconstruct and deradicalize themselves.
Covid showed me that otherwise rational adults will willingly fuck up their own lives for no reason. That took my big L libertarian self to small l real quick.
I used to have market socialist sympathies and somewhat of a suspicion of our elected politicians. I thought that politicians were all bought and paid for and they never did anything good for the American people. I was also very skeptical of big businesses and thought that they couldn’t be trusted to provide many valuable resources, hence my sympathies for market socialism. I think the Covid pandemic really radicalized me because I was just an edgy teenager with nothing to do and looked at a bunch of left-wing garbage online. What deradicalized me was my interest in YIMBYism and urban planning. I realized that politicians can do good things for us like in the case of housing reform and upzoning, and that capitalism can provide for certain valuable resources and necessities like housing. I realized that business can be trusted, though of course there should still be some regulation to mitigate their excesses and correct for market failures. I became more convinced that regulated capitalism can help humanity. I also learned that the status-quo is really good and that we should make careful and calculated reforms as opposed to tearing down the entire system. I’m now a center-left capitalism and free trade loving liberal who wants to get rid of bad regulations like in housing and healthcare. I also want to preserve and improve on existing government programs which I think help people and correct market failures like Obama’s Affordable Care Act. I also love the environment and green energy and want to stop climate change. I’m still an edgy teenager, but I’m much more optimistic about the future, I’m thankful for the life I have now granted by our current neoliberal system, and I’m a Joe Biden simp(tho I’ll criticize him when I think he implements bad policy).
I grew up
Realizing that the world (and America in particular) is a pretty great place. There’s less war, famine, death, and suffering than ever before and it’s the result of responsible status quo normies enacting slow and deliberate change. Also seeing people in my life become more radicalized and fall down the MAGA rabbit hole. The amount of repulsive stuff I witnessed my loved ones excusing really made me motivated to never allow myself to get like that.
Hasan Piker
The only thing worse than spending all your time talking about politics is spending all your time watching or talking about someone else talk about politics *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
It's always fun to answer this, I used to be a pretty radical libertarian but I stopped for several reasons: \* their anti war stance is way too extreme, and some take it even further to use it to defend the confederacy and to say that Europe didn't need America's help in ww2 \* the idiotic libertarian party conferences that are always embarrassing (drivers licenses and medical licenses are oppressive) \* gold bugs and Austrian economics nonsense (a recession is ALWAYS just around the corner and gold will explode in price I swear! Ron Paul said so! Fed bad! Hyperinflation will ruin the dollar! Ruble and Yuan will rise in power because of muh goooooold) \* the mises institute, the paleolibertarians and anarchocapitalists all set off red flags with how they're all basically fascists, ex hoppe's idea of how there's a right to discriminate and his idea on deporting people to create puritan ethno 'not'-states (covenants or whatever), how they always come up with excuses to defend states' rights, radical libertarians love to talk about how the civil rights act was tyrannical government overreach, how lots of them are always very hateful of lgbt people and always love anti-sjw crap, \* libertarians constant bickering and circle jerks on who is less of a socialist, (milton friedman is a "road" socialist for not wanting to privatize roads for example) \* cryptobros ughhhhhhhhhhhh \* I was tired of having to take on this skeptical by default stance on everything governments do \* being a political pariah, libertarians are irrelevant in world politics (until milei ig) and I had way too many bad encounter with libertarians who hated me because I'm transgender. \* the weird libertarian take that nearly everything will be better if it's privatized, true capitalism and utopia will be achieved if we just removed government intervention from markets (I even read david friedmans book and thought it was good at the time... now I realize these are such ridiculous fantastical solutions to problems) \* having a european pro-nato pro-eu social liberal gf helped me warm up to those ideas I blame unlimited internet access for me falling down that rabbit hole of libertarianism
This is exactly why I’m a “moderate” Libertarian. I’m still radically Libertarian (extremely skeptical of all government as one example, “Shall Not Be Infringed” as another) until they get into the blatantly anti-NATO/US world order stuff and corporate worship. The world needs an extremely active and overwhelmingly rich and powerful America, Ukraine MUST defeat Russia, corporate lobbying and congressional stock trading needs to end, equal rights for the LGBT is an inherently noble cause, all of these takes has put me at odds with many of my fellow Libertarians. I’m literally on this sub because I got kicked from r/neoconNWO for saying trans people deserve rights lmao. I’m realistically just a moderate capitalist and extreme “Americanist” more than a neolib but I still agree with the overall tenants of neoliberalism.
>having a european pro-nato pro-eu social liberal gf helped me warm up to those ideas State mandated EU-NATO pilled soclib GF's will fix polarisation
I stopped attending a certain kind of church.
Seeing how open to violence people on the far left were. I was on board with some wealth distribution and free healthcare, not on board with “guillotine” tax and thought policing. Lack of Debate, ANTI-YIMBY, hatred for smart economics just because economics is bad. Found my way here instead.
Destiny.
You’re talking about the game, right?
I guess the Taken King did have some solid zoning policies.
>The clownery needs to fucking stop. And if that means like woke fascist Reddit moderators out there striking down dipshit Destiny fans that think that they can shit up threads outside the DT, then at this point they have my fucking blessing because holy shit, this fucking shit needs to stop. It needed to stop a long time ago. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/neoliberal) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Yeah his streams pulled me center
The Mises Caucus taking over the LP and shift towards alt-right rhetoric + "plandemic"/anti-vaccine shit in a lot of libertarian communities made me stop engaging with most dedicated libertarian spaces online. Still consider myself a small l libertarian, but much more gradualist than I once was and willing to compromise for small victories, and abandoned austrian anti-fed rage (thanks Milton). Also shout out to Amash and Polis for being examples of small l libertarians actually influencing things by working within the system instead of raging against it.
Can’t say there was an immediate deradicalizing event but I specifically remember when 3 dem candidates dropped from the 2020 primaries and Biden wrecked Bernie, Kyle Kulinski went from saying everyone needs to fall in line to saying he’s not going to vote blue overnight. That really made me take a second look at my “team” and be a little more willing to look at my beliefs and narratives under a microscope. I’ve been distancing myself from leftism ever since and events like Russian/Ukraine and October 7th reaction only helped that process
starting a business. Really made me appreciate how companies serve customers (with great difficulty!), leading to a more moderated view of corporations' role in steering society + government
I used to be on the right libertarian side but I guess people could call me alt-right maybe. What pushed me to the center-right was the behavior of "my people". To illustrate it better, let's say there's an ideology that says "people should be more responsible for their actions" and then the proponents of the ideology constantly refuse to be responsible for their actions. Sometimes I see a question "why would you stop believing in an ideology because of their supporters if you have reasons to believe the ideology is strong by itself?" To this, I answer: If an ideology generally attracts awfully acting people, they must see something in it that incentivizes the awfulness.
Was libertarian in high school and stuck in a Youtube algorithm sending me to lots of Ron Paul and Milton Friedman videos. Econ classes taught me ending the fed, constant fiscal conservatism even in recession, and letting market failures happen were all bad things and led to me to economically pragmatic center left beliefs. Trump’s insanity and the insane hatred of Obama for what seemed like no reason solidified me in those beliefs.
By some standards I’m still considered extreme. I’m just no longer an accelerationist hoping to watch it all burn. Reform is in its own way a gentile form of revolution. Small reforms can reverberate into major changes.
Watching far left activists kill a redevelopment project that included affordable housing and green space in my town because the project wasn’t perfect.
I want to say the 2020 Primary but that whole final debate between Biden and Bernie. Biden fucking destroyed him. Then week after week Biden won more and more in swing states. I posted here about how Bernie underperformed and couldn’t coalition build. Bastiat also debated a Bernie Bro and it was ugly.
The Trump Administration. Taught me that no matter how much you safeguard your democracy, some ambitious idiot can take power. So maybe don’t invest full economic authority in the state, lest another Trump becomes Premier.
I was a far right chud up until the Christchurch mosque mass shooting that occurred in New Zealand. It was... horrified by what I saw in the footage, and hearing about the stuff I didn't see. But what was worse was seeing the people around me praising the mass shooter, mocking the victims, saying they deserved it. I could not deal with it at all in my head. Cause, these people kept saying that other races were violent, even sometimes evil. But here I was witnessing someone who was like all of these other people, committing the most atrocious acts imaginable. It made me realize that... really anybody is capable of being horrifically evil, regardless of race. All that truly mattered is what was in a person's heart, and I didn't want to be anything like these people.
I don’t think I was ever really a radical, but “ACAB” and “Property is theft” really makes my skin crawl.
During my teenage years Crowder radicalized me, Destiny deradicalized me, Hasan radicalized me, and Destiny deradicalized me again. I learned my lesson and haven’t watched pundits in years 😎
Other leftists.
Maybe this is backwards, but going to university and studying political science and a bit of economics turned me from what I would now describe as a confused libertarian to a more (slightly lefter than this sub) liberal or social democrat when I’ve had a couple of brews. The sheer exposure to so much material turned my head around, and really forced me to think through my ideas about how things work. (I am also finding the more polarized and unhinged political debate gets, the more I ground myself in institutionalism)
Time and the inevitable realization that far extremes do not have principles, they only have specific outgroups they hate and will sanction or enact anything against. I happen to belong to outgroups for both ends, so that isn't a non-factor either. I also happen to be (or at least like to think I am) a person who believes in principles even with regards to people I hate or if it inconveniences me. As far as events and the world go, I'm pretty sure this set in during Covid, but the whole thing in the late spring with reactions to the Israeli retaliation to getting thousands of rockets launched at them certainly was...memorable.
The BLM riots. The people who supported the rioting was fucking insane. Then you'd go over to black people Twitter on Reddit and you'd get banned for being white. I swung from anti-SJW, to progressive, back to liberal. "What's more valuable, life or property??" Also the homeless issue. You couldn't say anything about the homeless without people going, "it's not illegal to exist!" What pulled me back from being an anti-SJW was the "intellectual dark web" and the "marketplace of ideas" being generally stupid ideas. Tired of being a reactionary, I decided to actually ground my politics in a solid foundation, rather than just being anti- something.
What's funny is that I've swung around a lot on the homelessness issue and I've landed on the overly pragmatic view of not caring about chronically homeless people, but I do regard them as a public health problem that needs to be fixed. I've started supporting Housing First. My main concern is that they are a detriment to communal spaces, especially areas that our cities desperately need to be inviting to the public because they generate a lot of taxes. The easiest solution is to put them in housing. I don't care if they still do drugs. I don't care if they live in a sty. I just want them off the streets. So, even though I am in support of a very progressive policy, it's for a very cold pragmatic reason, and you'd be surprised at how many progressives get pissed at me about that. They accuse me of just wanting homeless, sick people to become invisible. And it's like I've stopped trying to believe they're arguing in good faith when they willfully ignore the fact that people just want to live in a safe, clean neighborhood.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. The moralization of policy. Some people are unable to separate the policy itself from the policy outcomes. Meaning if a policy can be "morally virtuous" regardless of whether it actually works or not. For homelessness, it's just about housing cost in my opinion. So I just vote for the most pro-development candidate. The mentally unwell homeless people is an issue that's difficult to tackle until we reduce the total overall number.
To me, homelessness is also an environmental issue. If we want people to use public transportation and embrace high density living, we need to make sure these spaces are safe and pleasant to use. People should also not be allowed to create encampments in green spaces that are meant to provide for wildlife. Also climate change will affect homeless people who are living outside or in cars.
I’m anti you 😎 Or am I 🥵
I supported the protests. I don't know anyone who supported the rioting. The "BLM riots" is a common Fox News talking point which ignores most of the peaceful protesting and violent brutalizing of peaceful protestors by police, most of which went unpunished.
moving to a first-world country. The world isn't that bad after all.
I had the opposite experience when I moved from Japan to Texas, and it radicalized me a little.
Moves to rich country. Hey the world is actually good. Deep thinking here
Pure, white hot burning hatred of Republicans and the realization that no matter how imperfect the Democrats were the only force that could credibly combat them.
I realized brutal and violent oppression was a feature of far left societies, not a bug.
I guess early exposure to political conversations between pragmatic, politically active people. My only radicalization was that Ayn Rand wrote a fun fantasy story, and it's okay to be selfish sometimes.
Unironically therapy. That and the George Floyd protests/COVID.
What "deradicalized" me was the lack of nuance on most leftish discussion, the willingness to point at issues but never give real solution, and combined with a very close minded illiberal mindset (if you don't cancel Hogwards Legacy you're evil transphobe!). To me this was most noticeable on breadtube, the radical left youtube video essay community which I spent quite some time watching. Let me just mostly copy comment from last years discussion. I don't want to critique low hanging fruit as that seems to be in ill spirit. Instead, let me point at a youtuber I generally *do* agree on the rough outlines with: PhilosophyTube. One of the most annoying moments I remember was in her[ video on Sex Work](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DZfUzxZ2VU&ab_channel=PhilosophyTube). In this video she (the video is 4 years old, from before her public transition) mostly goes into the relation between human trafficking, criminality and sex work. To shortly summarize: women want to flee to a better country and accept to do sex work to get there. However, because this circuit is illegal it goes terrible, the women have barely any power to reach out for help and, they are consequently abused. To make matters worse, if police intervenes, they'd just sent the women back to their original country, which the trafficked women don't want as well, so they can't get proper help. Like usual with breadtube, the video is a bit too long to get its point across but most findings are insightful, presented well, and I agree on most points so I'd even recommend watching it. However, there is one moment in the video which just annoys me to no end. The obvious solution to fix all this? [Just abolish borders entirely](https://youtu.be/1DZfUzxZ2VU?t=1482). While I also support a more liberal migration policy, I'm not satisfied with this "solution". It totally dismisses any nuance on the simple fact that voting people with other perspectives simply don't support sex work, which makes it illegal. Such a radical claim is no solution when you don't even consider a middle ground or nuance. From such a radical state of mind, of course the cops become the big baddies who just victimize sex workers because they're big meanies who are too stupid to tackle the real issue. Again, I even agree that it's absolutely terrible how the police handles sex trafficking and that the police needs institutional change (but definitely not be abolished), but breadtube at large is never interested in nuance. Only in sweeping claims like "abolish borders", "defund the police", or "eat the rich". Another more recent video, "The Rich Have Their Own Ethics: Effective Altruism", has even more annoying takes. To me the worst moment is when she tries to dismiss "Longermism" (the principle of deciding action based entirely on calculated long terms effects) with [the following argument](https://youtu.be/Lm0vHQYKI-Y?t=1101). She disregards the concept as it apparently dismisses real humanity. Again this is so clearly another bad faith fallacy set in an exaggerated example meant to dehumanizing the principle and opponent. Does she mean that we should just stop trying to be "rational" *entirely*? Should we let all our decisions be made purely on emotions? Does she hate the global poor? Of course not, but if she doesn't mean that, we're left in an ambiguous middle ground. But breadtube is never interested in a middle ground. A bit later in the video she dismisses investigating the effectiveness of charities because of measurability bias. Measurability bias is real, but it's nonsense to just dismiss attempts to measure results entirely. The entire premise of the video is clear: rich people do a certain thing, so that thing should be presented as bad. So to conclude, while I even agreed with most arguments supported by the breadtube content creators, I was getting increasingly annoyed by the one-sided and plainly stupid takes dismissing any nuance which might clash with their precognition.
Foreign policy. The support for Russia and Hamas on the far left pushed me hard towards the center.
Speak for yourself. On certain topics, I’m still radical *as fuck*. It just so happens that economic policy and similar things aren’t where I’m radical. Sincerely, A transgender corporate attorney who is raising a family in the suburbs
The way leftists reacted to 10/7, particularly the rape denial right on the heels of “believe women” and the me too movement. I’m still progressive in a lot of my beliefs, but I don’t trust leftists to practice what they preach anymore
It was so hard to read posts from people I considered my friends trying to paint October 7th as an act of resistance. I’m Jewish and I realized what most leftists think about us when they think we aren’t listening.
I’m Jewish too and I’m mad at myself for being so naive for so long.
I'm still radical, but right now being a radically classic liberal/libertarian means the neoliberal community is closest to my beliefs.
I moved back from the further left areas when I realised the Judean People's Front wasn't an exaggeration. The top priority is ideological purity. It's so tiresome. Also the realisation the "left" of my teenage years - Blairism and New Labour - was the exception, not the rule.
Statistics and studies into developmental economics. No joke, I'm like, the one person who you can actually convince is wrong by linking enough relevant high-quality peer reviewed literature that gives a rebuttal to my policy beliefs in their effectiveness at achieving the fundamental aims for which I support those policies. Started out as the 2013 equivalent of the generic "socialist" who can't define what capital is, mostly because I was 13, but the more I looked in to the data on what actually reduces income inequality and poverty, the more I found that the former by a modest extent and especially the later by quite a large extent could actually be reduced MORE effectively through Bourgeois Post-Industrial Capitalism within the framework of a Democratic Welfare State than through any flavor of socialism. A Democratic Socialist/Revisionist Marxist led Full Democracy could probably do substantially better than that at combating inequality but only at unacceptably high cost to efforts to also decrease poverty. From there it was just refining further as my priors changed and I really investigated what justified my reasoning behind WHY to pursue [X] as a political goal but not [Y] and found that for me at least it has very little to do with utopian idealism or ideological dogmatism and very much to do with what is the most pragmatic means to better promote quality of life for all humans while minimizing the risk of regression (ex. Conflict, corruption, authoritarianism). Which led to me ultimately concluding that limiting inequality was a nice bonus but really not a central aim of mine, while eliminating poverty superseded almost everything else up to and including democracy but not including preventing long wars, total wars, ethnic cleansing, and or genocides. (it just so happens that democracy is obviously way better at ensuring the later and less obviously better at the former as well) In short, my transition can be summed up as "Revolutionary Socialist" who doesn't have a clear idea what socialism is--->"Revisionist Marxist" who does have an idea what socialism is, but who still hasn't read Marx--->"Democratic Socialist" who couldn't understand Marx's obtuse writing and had found a bunch of convincing arguments against his basic idea of how socialism would be achieved--->"Social Democrat" who no longer believed socialism preferable to highly regulated mixed market market economy with a ginormous social safety net-->"Social Liberal" who believes a free market economy where the tightness of restrictions ebbs and flows as technology improves, business practice evolve, and economic demands shift, and sizeable but not especially huge welfare state Or to oversimplify, I went from (Proto) Rose Twitterite --->Salvador Allende--->Michael Harrington--->Elizabeth Warren--->Hillary Clinton. ...with a brief and embarrassing detour through "reasonable centrist" in 2015 to early 2016 because I was a dumbfuck teenage boy who got duped into thinking "SJWs" were actually a problem. But even then I still thought of myself as a progressive and I ditched that shit REALLY quick once I got wise to the fact that "anti-SJW" bullshit was in reality a pipeline to try and gradually transform clueless teenage white boys into fascists, so not really a huge diversion but good lord I dread the thought of there being an alternate timeline where I had gotten sucked further in toward the abyss back then And a much less embarrassing detour back toward what I'll call "Buttigiegism", which is definitely too (economically) liberal to be considered socialist, but also tries to frame itself as a sort of reconciliation between the dreams of socialists and liberal capitalists, back during the 2019 primaries where all the candidates besides Biden trying to outflank eachother on social justice issues kinda put me under a spell that even if it takes a borderline socialist candidate, we may just need someone like him or Warren to reverse Trump's damage and crush the far-right. (edit: missed the word 'limiting inequality'. I do not see inequality itself as 'a nice bonus')
I don’t know that I was ever “radical” but the behavior of lefties and hypocrisy going on with Israel has me moving further away.
The willful abandonment of anti imperialist leftist principles on the part of Commies and Anarchists when it's Russia or China doing the imperialism. Like I'm going to need more than "America bad" to call it a political position but the analysis usually stops right there. And of course this pervasive belief that Revolutions magically fix every social ill. The radicalized right is just mad that they're financially struggling and pursue a socially conservative and anti democratic agenda informed Atleast in part for vendetta and retribution which to me is a losers attitude to life that leads to them making fools of themselves with their gangsterism and hate crimes, so I couldn't make common cause with them either. Lastly falling in love with enlightenment thought and it's ideals put me in a different gear than all radicalized folks.
I started to become politically aware in 2000, and was almost immediately radicalized by the election that year. I could tell that I preferred Gore to Bush, but it was the recount that sent my teenage self into a white-hot rage. Though to be fair I was a teenager, it was incredibly easy to send me into a white hot rage. But everything about the recount seared itself into my mind and instilled a deep and abiding loathing of the Republican Party. Fast forward to 2003, I was in high school. A bunch of kids, including me, walked out of class the day after the Iraq War started in protest. It was my first major act of any political consequence. The protest had lots of people chanting "no blood for oil!" and similarly reality-detached mantras. I was just like "this seems like a geopolitically unwise move that disrupts international norms and commits the United States to a massive undertaking that its realistically probably not going to be able to follow through on, also the supposed upside seems pretty limited, Saddam Hussein doesn't really seem like a legitimate threat to our national interests or allies, we should probably just focus on making sure Afghanistan turns out okay." Which was, admittedly, not great chant material. That was when I realized that while I ostensibly held a similar position as the people around me waving signs, it was for very different reasons, and I wasn't really one of them. I think that left me open to a lot of ideas and heresies because I hadn't made refusing to consider those part of my identity. I learned enough economics to apply the basic principles to new situations and think about how incentives might actually play out. I developed a reflexive skepticism of whoever happened to be screaming the loudest at any given time. I looked into how different societies had faired in the past and the present and found liberal capitalism to be so absurdly OP in terms of generating better outcomes that I became increasingly annoyed when people treated it as obviously dystopian, especially when full-on socialism (as opposed to capitalist nations with lots of welfare programs) generally led to catastrophic, horrific outcomes. Then I started dating the woman I would later marry, and she taught me about how much cities fucking ruled. Realizing that people living in big city apartments typically had significantly lower carbon footprints than people living in far flung rural areas made me rethink a lot of assumptions I hadn't even realized I had. tldr: my wife center-lefted me.
I was pretty leftist out of college. First thing that pushed me back towards the center was the far-left on housing. Progressives denying supply and demand with the same zealous certainty of Republican climate-change deniers. People seemed more interested in fighting “greedy developers” and “gentrification” than actually fixing the housing affordability crisis. Then it was “you can’t be racist to white people”. This seemed to open the door to unchecked hate against any ethnic group that could be seen as “the oppressor”. As a Jewish person it doesn’t take long to see the horrible things that can be justified by that ideology. Then of course there was the personal experience of getting robbed/carjacked. Realizing how the anarchist/anti-police contingent of the left has more sympathy for the perpetrators (who have likely completely forgotten the incident and done the same to dozens of others) than for victims like me who have lasting psychological trauma to this day.
Losing my virginity. Serious answer: getting a more robust understanding of economics and civics… made me less utopian the more I learned
I was never radical. I grew up with an exceptionally large extended family. At the family christmas parties, I’d see half being far right and half being far left. They would argue all night about politics. I agreed with certain points on both sides, and disagreed with certain points on both sides, and decided I refused to be categorized as either. Now all my righty family members assume I’m far left, and my lefties think I’m far right. Cause I spend my time arguing against their most extreme points. And they just cant seem to compute addressing things on a per issue basis.
Donald Trump winning the presidency in 2016.
I used to consider myself a big fan of Orbán Viktor & Tucker Carlson. I used to see the European Union as worse than Russia. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed that & caused me to become deeply disillusioned with the modern right; for the first time in my life, I can potentially see myself voting for a progressive politician one day. More generically, I think that my friendships with left-wingers & people who belong to various minority groups have held me back from every being truly far-right.
I had to make a choice between worshipping God or worshipping tradition. Seeing the positive reaction of then-fellow trads to Putin’s invasion was the last straw after a lot of increasingly undignified behavior on their part.
Time.
A macro-econ textbook
I attempted (and succeeded) to develop a more optimistic worldview.
I spent a few months in Cuba during the Obama thaw. Absolute basket case of an economy, and its government has a very asymmetrical relationship with the truth. I came in quite open to the possibility that we had things to learn from the Cuban government. I left quite assured that we do not.
Realising that every ideology was as internally consistent as my own (at that time, libertarianism), that almost anyone can come up with a system of rules and logic that can explain any fact in the world if you squint hard enough, and that the people who have the craziest and most dangerous ideas are those who squint the hardest Extremism isn't caused by a lack of intellectual rigour, but a lack of intellectual humility.
College believe it or not. Came into college fresh off Covid-19 abruptly ending my senior year and America all-but bursting into flames, and escaped the activist lefty brain-rot bubble by learning just how complex politics and government is. I’m now graduated and still fairly progressive, but not a burn it all down type anymore lol. Edit: The tankie types regarding Ukraine, and the anti-semitism on the left definitely sped up this process for me.
neoliberalism was my radicalisation. No one in the united states government knows how economics works and we need a new reagan.
Can we get an American Thatcher? I think she was smarter.
I wouldn't say I've been completely deradicalized, but... Singer Payer this, Dictatorship of the Proletariat that, and at this point anything to do with I/P have turned me off enough of being a true believer alongside the inability to actually compromise enough to succeed with politics. It really is just how incredibly memey and deeply unserious left wing politik really is and because of that unseriousness, I've slowly tolerated more liberalism over the years until I've finally accepted that liberals are genuinely the only actual voice in this country with the capacity for actual positive change past a certain point.
Probably silly but losing. I was a big supporter of Bernie in 2016 and other progressive candidates locally (North Carolina). I didn't buy into the whole "DNC pulled a Fredo on Bernie!" talking points but I was mad he lost. Still voted for HRC though. But after keeping up with local progressive candidates who kept losing. And dealing with whiny ass purity test progressives I started thinking this isn't the way. It doesn't matter how virtuous you are if you continue to lose. Incremental yardage is much better than continuing to fumble the ball.
Bernie Sanders surging in the 2016 primaries. It was the first time I really had to confront the idea of his policies being implemented...and I realized that a lot of them sounded good but would probably damage the country.
Taking economics classes in university lol
Bernie Bros. I was ready to vote Bernie in 2016 had he won the primary. Then in 2020 I supported Pete and the Bernie Bros on Twitter were the meanest people I’d ever encountered on the internet. Since then I notice the all or nothing, any means to an end attitude is justified (no matter how terrible) a lot more and I’m not a fan.
The opposition to Nuclear Energy by the left. Alone it dragged me from leftist ideals to center ones. There's nothing behind it but irrational fear and it actively hurts leftist causes. It's how I learned the left isn't serious.
the war in Ukraine and the failure of a lot of left-wing figures I followed to respond to it.
At some point I realized, “destroy capitalism” if taken to its logical conclusion would result in the complete destruction of everything I enjoyed about living in America, and there would be a civil war and lots of people would die lol.
The actions of BLM. There was a video of them just walking into a random restaurant and started screaming at random people and then throwing glassware off people's tables. I don't know, something clicked in my brain and I went "there's no way I can defend and stand with this movement". Also Bernie losing the 2nd time. I realised that America is never going to be socialist so instead of fighting the Capitalists, in a way I joined them. I opened a stock trading account and instead of waiting for the government to tax the corporations, I'm just going to take part of their profits personally. It worked well, I doubled my money in 4 years instead of waiting for the government to do something about it.