I know this discussion is had fairly often, but I was watching ShortFatOtaku’s stream about the DrKarlyn v. ShoeOnHead “debate”, and wanted to share a bit of my experiences I have had as someone who used to see themselves as being on the left.
Pre-Trump, I was fairly apolitical, but growing up in the South, I had lots of interactions with the “religious right.” As an atheist that supports equality, at the the time I thought that I must be center-left, because I had misconceptions on what the right stood for. It was about this time that I started running into the “woke” Tumblr types and would see some of their ridiculous posts about gender, diversity and racism. I laughed at these thinking they were a bit far out there, but dismissed them.
Soon afterwards GamerGate happened, but I wasn’t really aware of it at the time. I still played games and hung out in various communities, but I wasn’t aware of all of the stuff going on with journalism at the time. Some friends at my high school had shown me Feminist Frequency, but I just saw it as some weirdos who had no idea about gaming, not as a potential threat to the hobby. I stayed fairly apolitical during this time, but that didn’t last long. While spending time online, I started to see more and more “woke” nonsense and started watching “Feminists DESTROYED with FACTS and logic” compilations. I was made aware of Milo, Alex Jones, Ben Shapiro, and Project Veritas. I started going down what some people call the “rabbit hole.” I started watching “Skeptic” YouTubers including Shoe. I started watching Tim Pool and the Quartering daily, and made my way onto half-KiA as a lurker. I had begun to take the “red-pill” and was getting slightly obsessed. I didn’t like what I was seeing, but I needed to see more and more.
Eventually I made my way over to our Sub as a lurker, still, and became aware of more, that the half-KiA mods wouldn’t allow because it didn’t relate to gaming. I still see myself being closer to the center than to the right, but I feel like I can never vote for the current left, because they are so far gone. It is very cliche, but I feel like I was pushed away from the left which led me here. I’ve been around the sub for a while now, but only became active recently.
what it means to be left/right changes over time. When I was a kid, the Dems were clearly the party of the working class. Nobody disputed that, Republicans were the party of the rich
Reagan came in and had a new definition of conservatism, and started the process of attracting working class voters. Nowadays, the Dems despise the working class and have replaced them with the intersectional coalition, they are now clearly the party of the coastal elite.
In light of this, it only seems natural that people change their political affiliations. For a lot of people, they haven't changed, their party did