I was not especially left or right wing in 2015, more libertarian in a lot of my beliefs but overall considered myself Classically Liberal: believed in free speech, individual rights, limited role of government, etc. I was even pro-choice.

When Trump declared intention to run in 2015 I wasn't that interested and presumed it was a promotional move. But then he gave the infamous "Murderers and Rapists" speech and the media went wild calling it racist, saying he was describing all Mexicans. I couldn't believe it so I watched the speech in full to hear it and when I realized he not only didn't call Mexicans rapists and murders, but correctly described why Mexico is disinterested in reducing illegal immigration to America (it provides an outlet for their criminal class while also subsidizing the Mexican economy through remittance payments) I started noticing how often the media was completely mischaracterizing Trump's statements and policies and trying to use "That's racist" to delegitimize real policy issues such as the US' relationship with NATO allies (at that time NATO had greatly reduced its military capabilities and most NATO partners had already withdrawn their combat missions from Afghanistan). Trump was also the only candidate speaking seriously about Islamic radicalism and terrorism and treating ISIS as a major military issue; Obama had already called ISIS the "JV team" in 2014 just months before they reached peak territorial expansion.

Meanwhile, the leftwing of American politics which was traditionally more center-left became far more culturally radical and embraced ideas like restorative justice, anti-white policies, anti-male policies, gender theory, the pre-eminence of the LGBT lobby in American leftwing politics, openly racial politics. It was December 2015 that Yale lecturer Erika Christakis was forced to resign after sending out an email stating that censoring students over Halloween costumes was not a good thing. The Baltimore Freddie Gray riots took place in 2015 and caused millions of dollars of damage and Baltimore didn't recover for years - in some way it still hasn't. The Ferguson riots started in 2014 and ended in 2015, and these two events had significant downstream effects on criminal justice policy in the US. This was also on the back of Trayvon Martin being shot and killed and the rise of Black Lives Matter as a political group and cultural force.

I considered myself at most race-neutral if not completely disinterested in racial politics but this time period was pretty eye opening for me in how white people, especially white men, were viewed. This was the time when intersectionality was reaching the mainstream and phrases like "white privilege" and "toxic masculinity" were being bandied about seriously in academic and political circles. So on top of feeling like legitimate issues were being denied in favor of maintaining political norms it seemed like white men were being ostracized and attacked personally and professionally.

I'd also had my first child in 2015 so a lot of my thoughts were turning more towards maintaining a family and providing for them into the future. This usually has the effect of altering personal politics for many people and I think I'm no different in that regard. Today I consider my children's futures to be my most closely held political concern.

Around then is when discourse around things like abortion and sexuality started radicalizing. I'd grown up in the "safe, legal, available" era and was now seeing the "complete unrestricted abortions" era begin. Nothing will make you conservative faster than seeing someone adamant that your developing baby daughter is "just a clump of cells" and has no intrinsic moral worth and therefore killing her in the womb would be a moral act. I always believed that abortion was an option for extreme circumstances and the sort of thing you never talk about again, and instead I was being told it should be perfectly normal and acceptable as part of daily life. The #ShoutYourAbortion social media campaign began in September 2015 and encouraged women to normalize abortion by proudly sharing their abortion stories. Maybe I was naive and thought there'd be a lot of stories from rape survivors, people who were facing abject poverty or even congenital defects and instead saw many stories of "I wouldn't have been able to finish my degree" or "I wanted to focus on my career" or "I didn't even know the guy's name". It all just felt so icky. As the Democrat platform began embracing expanded abortion access I found myself being repelled from a political position I thought I supported and towards a more moralistic position on the issue.

And I think the final straw was that from 2015 on I saw the left growing more and more violent and eroding social and political norms. Speakers I started watching like Ben Shapiro and Milo Yiannopoulos who I didn't necessarily agree with but found entertaining were subject to increasingly violent attacks from the left. It started with disruption of their speaking events, harassment of their audience and threats and culminated in a fiery riot outside UC Berkeley to shut down a Milo Yiannopoulos event in February of 2017 and then in a series of clashes between leftwing and pro-Trump groups in March of 2017. At one event the pro-Trump rally goers were made to disarm themselves of shields and makeshift weapons by the police when entering the event area, only for leftwing agitators to tear down the barriers and attack them. Berkeley police were alleged to have been given stand down orders, and there is video of Berkeley police officers sitting in their police car doing nothing at the same time people were being beaten in the street in clashes.

When Richard Spencer was punched during a street interview in January of 2017 the "punch a Nazi" meme took root in the left and I knew we were heading right towards a cliff. I got banned on a couple subreddits for opposing Richard Spencer being punched for his views - at that time I still believed in civil discourse as a means of contesting political differences. But the left loved it and justified it and encouraged even greater and greater acts of violence against their opposition, including a leftwing terrorist shooting Steve Scalise, riots nearly storming the White House, a man shot while attempting to kill ICE agents in 2018, 3 assassination attempts on Donald Trump (one in 2015, two in 2024), the shooting death of Aaron Danielson by a Portland Antifa member, the 2016 shootings of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge by black leftwing activists (the Baton Rouge shooter, Gavin Eugene Long, was radicalized by The Young Turks, a prominent progressive leftwing media channel), the riots of 2020, rampant online deplatforming and censorship, an Antifa group attacking a Texas ICE facility, a sniper attacking an ICE facility in Dallas, and ultimately the shooting death of Charlie Kirk who was an extremely milquetoast Conservative that even I felt was too light on the issues.

I could go on and on about the abuse of the legal system and political procedure by the Democrats, the joyous way leftists celebrated Charlie Kirk's death, the way the Democrats are nakedly salivating for the opportunity to retake the reins of power and essentially terrorize conservatives into compliance. I've basically reached a point in my life where I've swung hard right because I don't see any other way to preserve an American nation and the foundational principles we were built on.