Current Events > What is the biggest political shift you've seen in a person?

(+) Yeah! (+)

I took a political science class with this girl who was an anarcho communist. She was really pretentious and acted like she was more adult than most of us because she started college at age 23

A few years later when I was in grad school I saw her on Facebook and her political views were listed as nationalist and her religious views to orthodox Christianity and she had a bunch of alt right stuff on her profile

How does shit like this happen?

I think the biggest changes like this I've seen are w/ people who have gotten like a new significant other, or someone who went through some really crappy times, and I guess were like, just looking for ANYTHING to latch onto.

nekrodev posted...

I think the biggest changes like this I've seen are w/ people who have gotten like a new significant other, or someone who went through some really crappy times, and I guess were like, just looking for ANYTHING to latch onto.

I kinda think a lot of people do latch onto movements because they are lacking something in life. There is a book titled the true believer that is about this

Watching a pissed off Bernie voter turn into a full on red hat maga chud.

Myself... I'm way more conservative now than when I already was years ago.

I don't really understand anyone, especially like, if you're 40 and under, becoming MORE conservative, unless maybe you've also gotten super rich or something.

Vicious_Dios posted...

Myself... I'm way more conservative now than when I already was years ago.

That does match with your tag.

ok

nekrodev posted...

I don't really understand anyone, especially like, if you're 40 and under, becoming MORE conservative, unless maybe you've also gotten super rich or something.

Even if you accumulate wealth, being conservative is still a pretty good indicator that youre a dick. As I got wealthier, I did not get more conservative.

Some people's political community seems to sort of match up with the phenomenon of 'cult hopping'.

I have a friend who went from voting for Ted Cruz in the 2016 primaries to being a super liberal who can't stand Republicans.

I remember my friend in college calling Angela Merkel a war criminal and being way into the Trump wing and he snapped back to being a total leftist. I think it had something to do with how he was obsessed with Sam Hyde then as he lost interest the brain worms receded.

I had a leftie friend who never had much success with girls date an insanely conservative christian woman who wanted him to support her and their planned 5 kids with his 50k a year IT job. Thankfully he came to Jesus on that one but now is completely obsessed with vtubers.

Honestly, myself. Growing up, I was a tea party conservative throughout most of my school years. I became more of a libertarian around 2016, then I shifted hard to the left in 2020.

Nowadays, I would consider myself a social Democrat. I can't look back on my old views without feeling ashamed of myself for ever being a conservative.

TheHoldSteady posted...

I have a friend who went from voting for Ted Cruz in the 2016 primaries to being a super liberal who can't stand Republicans.

The best timeline

Not so much a political shift rather than an expedited descent into insanity, but a large portion of my extended family is Q-adjacent despite my best efforts.

My father went from being far left progressive to a conservative who is only voting Biden because of Trump.

Trans rights issues and pronouns are his reasoning, I'm not kidding. He is deathly afraid of calling someone the wrong pronoun and getting his life ruined and he seems to think that laws meant to protect trans people discriminate against him.

I don't know if I can pick just one. Most people I know who were into seemingly left-leaning libertarianism subjects like free market or freedom of speech ended up going down the alt-right in a short time.

RasterGraphic posted...

My father went from being far left progressive to a conservative who is only voting Biden because of Trump.

Trans rights issues and pronouns are his reasoning, I'm not kidding. He is deathly afraid of calling someone the wrong pronoun and getting his life ruined and he seems to think that laws meant to protect trans people discriminate against him.

This is the result of right wing fearmongering about bullshit like cancel culture. As though one misgender means the end of your entire professional life.

I used to be a conservative hell even a nationalist, then I graduated high school, started to see the world for what it really was, and decided being empathetic and understanding of others plights was the kind of stuff Jesus taught about in the Bible. I just didnt like seeing that republicans and right leaning governments main goals hurting as many people as possible that didnt fit into their constrained and walled off world views.

Voted blue ever since and became an atheist but I still hold those real Christian values close to my chest.

Arianna Huffington.

Cemith posted...

This is the result of right wing fearmongering about bullshit like cancel culture. As though one misgender means the end of your entire professional life.

conservatives secretly want to be canceled because it means they get to be a victim and start the grift game

Cemith posted...

This is the result of right wing fearmongering about bullshit like cancel culture. As though one misgender means the end of your entire professional life.

I unintentionally misgendered somebody once, in a professional setting. They informed me of my mistake, I apologised and then we both moved on as if nothing had happened.

Myself. I was a diehard Republican until about 2013. Now I'm a progressive liberal who'd vote for AOC for President in a split second.

Economics posted...

anarcho communist to christian nationalist

How does shit like this happen?

Horseshoe theory. The radical fringes of what we consider the 2D political spectrum actually gain more in common with each other the farther away from the "center" they move, even though they're supposedly moving in opposite directions. Someone who is close to radicalization is fertile ground for fanaticism, and once you push them past the margin, it becomes difficult to pull out of the rabbit hole, no matter how you enter it.

I consider myself very hard left. I'm definitely down some kind of rabbit hole. I could be very wrong, but either way the center is more wrong.

Nothing drastic. But a friend of mine went from a moderate-conservative Dem veteran who used to make fun of conservatives all the time to becoming a full on conservative himself. What triggered it was him getting into a car accident and spending his time on disability going down the rabbit hole of Joe Rogan which lead him to Ben Shapiro and that whole crowd. Now hes whatever the hell they are

My friend went through the reverse of the TC's account. Around 2009 and 2010, he was becoming worryingly far-right and recommended fascist authors to me like Julius Evola. I think it was just a really unfortunate edgelord phase; he was never racist or anything. Later he became an anarcho communist and then once he started arguing with tankies and Marxists online, just plain anarchist.

you can talk to people about actual ideas and they'll like it. but then when it's labeled or associated with the side they don't like, they don't like the thing. happened with the aca.

people are fucking weird.

pauIie posted...

you can talk to people about actual ideas and they'll like it. but then when it's labeled or associated with the side they don't like, they don't like the thing. happened with the aca.

people are fucking weird.

this. like, if you were to describe Bernie's platform to Trumpers in 2020, they'd be like, "oh yeah", but then you say his name, and they would start foaming at the mouth "SOOOOOCIALIIIIIIST REEEEE"

Instead of calling it socialism just label it as Freedom Eagle Cheeseburger Patriotism or something to get them on board.

My own transformation at the age of 25. I pissed the years of my wasted youth down the drain as a neo-Nazi activist. (That wasn't what we in the "political soldier" faction of the National Front liked to call ourselves; we preferred the label "Third Positionists". But we all knew what we really meant.) I also rubbed shoulders with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland and shook hands with "former" (wink) UFF and UVF men who I knew were killers.

And yet I went from that to being a campaigner in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

So, what happened? Did I find Jesus, or something? No, fuck that. Instead, the unthinkable happened: I fell in love with a black girl at work. (Yes, even neo-Nazis have day jobs.) It was a shock like having a glass smashed in my face.

Falling in love with her wrenched my life around 180 degrees. I got educated. I dumped my shitty beliefs in the trash can where they belonged, renounced the movement, and cut off former friends and "comrades" like gangrenous limbs. I pulled up my roots and moved to a different city, because living a real-life Romeo and Juliet story in which you're a "race traitor" isn't likely to end happily. (My parents had my "old friends" knocking on their front door and asking if I'd left a forwarding address.)

The only relic I have left now from that earlier, shameful part of my life is a couple of tattoos (odalrune and wolf's hook, if you're interested). Plus the shaven head.

Vampire_Chicken posted...

My own transformation at the age of 25. I pissed the years of my wasted youth down the drain as a neo-Nazi activist. (That wasn't what we in the "political soldier" faction of the National Front liked to call ourselves; we preferred the label "Third Positionists". But we all knew what we really meant.) I also rubbed shoulders with loyalist paramilitaries in Northern Ireland and shook hands with "former" (wink) UFF and UVF men who I knew were killers.

And yet I went from that to being a campaigner in the Anti-Apartheid Movement.

So, what happened? Did I find Jesus, or something? No, fuck that. Instead, the unthinkable happened: I fell in love with a black girl at work. (Yes, even neo-Nazis have day jobs.) It was a shock like having a glass smashed in my face.

Falling in love with her wrenched my life around 180 degrees. I got educated. I dumped my shitty beliefs in the trash can where they belonged, renounced the movement, and cut off former friends and "comrades" like gangrenous limbs. I pulled up my roots and moved to a different city, because living a real-life Romeo and Juliet story in which you're a "race traitor" isn't likely to end happily. (My parents had my "old friends" knocking on their front door and asking if I'd left a forwarding address.)

The only relic I have left now from that earlier, shameful part of my life is a couple of tattoos (odalrune and wolf's hook, if you're interested). Plus the shaven head.

Nice story man, glad you were able to grow better as an individual!

Not a political shift but I have a distant relative of mine who went from straight thot to a god fearing Christian freak.

She was a regular at a night club, went nearly every Friday/Saturday night and posted tons of pictures and shit about the party life even when she was married with a kid. That was over a decade ago. About 1-2 years ago she took herself and her kid out to California and it looks like she got a job there and is going to school at the same time but now she is a devout Christian that shares almost nothing but God-fearing propaganda on her FB. I am quite curious to find out what happened to her and her husband that made her do such a drastic change but it's really none of my business and I feel it'll be wrong to ask.

Vampire_Chicken posted...

The only relic I have left now from that earlier, shameful part of my life is a couple of tattoos (odalrune and wolf's hook, if you're interested).

Unrelated to the topic, but i hate how Nordic Runes have been essentially co-opted by the far right

Yazarogi posted...

Nice story man, glad you were able to grow better as an individual!

Thanks. I married her, the girl who changed my life, and although that part of the story might not exactly have had a happy ending (we separated after three years, divorced after five), I don't regret a single moment of what happened, only for what happened before we met. Part of me will always love her for that. (That's probably not something I'd confess to wifey #2, mind you...)

ROBANN_88 posted...

Unrelated to the topic, but i hate how Nordic Runes have been essentially co-opted by the far right

I think proto-Nazi occult cranks like the Thule Society were pulling that stunt as early as 1918. Seeing as how quite a few Waffen-SS divisional emblems were designed around runic symbols, they've been neo-Nazi chic since the end of WWII. Most people don't know the political significance of a runic badge or tattoo when they see one, but I agree, the futhark being hijacked by fascists is a bit like having your country's flag stolen by them.