How many people here on DU were once rethugs/conservatives?

[Shankapotomus]

83. My family are all Republicans

Mom, Dad, older sister and brother.

Early on I followed the family's lead in terms of beliefs but I was the first one in the family to really take an academic interest in politics. I really wanted to be some kind of political or foreign policy advisor. In early high school i read a book about the dakota native american cheif Crazy Horse which would have been a perfect springboard to introduce me to progressive ideas. But a freak encounter of my young impressionable mind with Ayn Rand sidetrack my progress and sent me on a little detour for awhile. It was during the Clinton administration as I watched and heard how the conservative establishment treated both Bill and Hillary that my eyes started to open to the ugliness of the movement, as a "student of objectivism", I partially was allied with. I knew there was something wrong with the way they were talking about the Clinton's. It was really ugly and I didn't like it. And when the Lewinski story broke I flipped out and called total bs on the republicans and Ken Starr. Ugly. Disgusting. Over the 2000 election campaign I had epiphany after epiphany until by the time Bush Jr. was about to be nominated, who i immediately thought was an idiot and refused to vote for, I was hurtling end over end toward Liberalism like a comet. It was a painful detour but through it all I never forgot or let go of the things I learned about greed and war and the kind of personalities that manifest such behaviors from that book on Crazy Horse's life. In a way, I think it primed me to end up a liberal progressive and gave me just enough of a right wing bullshit detector to eventually free myself from its illusions. I'm so far left now I have no objections to the political requests of any group except the groups intolerant of others, which always seem to exist on the right.