My family are mostly Democrat voting liberals and I identified as one for years. When I was in 5th grade I spent more time with my Fox News-watching grandparents and became a Republican for like a year or 2 and became an apolitical lib for a while. From like 2015-2019 I was a Bernie bro who had some objectively shit takes. The biggest 180 I did was probably on the sex trade. I used to be for it as a horny teen like “huh? Did someone say SeX?? Well it’s all ConSeNsUAL so why cockblock someone from getting some PuSsY?” Obviously now I realize that’s a disgusting sentiment and that most people in the industry are not happy and would rather do anything else. Just because a few are happy with their line of work, it doesn’t make it right to force so many others into a position where they feel abused and humiliated or threatened. “Legitimacy of industry” in terms of prostitution always means lining the pockets of abusive pimps (physical or anything else) who will use the opportunity to get rich and usually fund illegal markets (source: Look at Nevada). Enough about me, what topics have become more clear to yall after becoming a communist? I could probably list a few others but I’m interested in seeing what yall say.
It seems sort of weird to say, but almost everything but also nothing at the same time? A lot of my reactionary/liberal opinions were just regurgitations of points I had picked up from family/friends/school/media/etc and hadn’t really thought through and didn’t hold nearly as strongly as the positions I have now, so much so that I hesitate to even call them opinions (except for a few things like queer rights, since I was aware of my queerness relatively young, though my thinking on the topic has certainly evolved). Once I started becoming actually politcally conscious, I gradually started to realize all this and began slowly unlearning pretty much everything I had been taught and passively absorbed about socialist states, much of history (US history especially), how American politics actually function, etc. It’s honestly a little embarassing how flimsy the foundation was for a lot of my liberal/reactionary beliefs. That all being said, this process started shortly after I started to transition, an experience that shattered a lot of illusions I had been sold about capitalism and liberalism. Seeing my rights on the chopping block with the 2016 election, and then seeing the liberal response be the pussy hat march and then… just about fuck all else, made realize socialists and communists were the only ones who actually gave enough of a shit to do something. Once I realized who my real allies were, everything else followed after that.