How did everyone become a leftist?

Assumed I was conservate when I was 16 do to knowing my parents were but when I became interested in politics, I soon became more socially liberal and basically libertarian. This was due to learning about the failures of the drug war, the tragedy of America's wars abroad and such. 

Then I began to question whether we need the state at all and discovered these essentially right wing "anarchists" who use a sort of a-priori argument called the "non-aggression principle". I jumped on that bandwagon until I found that the NAP or "non-aggression principle" is essentially bad philosophy used to protect class privileges when it comes to property.

 Funny enough who led me along this path of questioning the NAP were a group called "Bleeding Heart Libertarians", the fellows at Center for a Stateless Society (a primarily individualist anarchist and mutualist group), anarcho-communists such as early left youtube's (anarchopac / Zoe Baker), and people in group forums back in the day such as Brenton ( Brenton Lengel - YouTube). They all really stuck the nail in the coffin when it came to right wing precepts and helped begin to usher me into left wing thought.

Now I am into a few more Marxist / post-Marxist sources but those previous influences listed were an instrumental introduction to the left (save for Bleeding Heart Libertarians which did get me questioning the NAP but I still considered a right-wing group). Funnily enough who first led me into finding good reason to question the efficacy of capitalism was Peter Joseph as well as the Venus Project / Jacque Fresco.

Maybe some things in my life led me this way, but politics has always been an intellectual pursuit for me which I wanted to grow in. So, I'm unsure of what were the exact precipitating life events. I am still soaking in what knowledge I can as someone who still has problems reading longer texts. I'm not very involved irl organizing or activism. I face personal and structural barriers to that here. But perhaps I will be able to find something worth doing actively.

HAHA XD

When righties went after Bill Clinton to get him to lie about a blow job.  I haven't voted R since.  Never regretted it.

I've always leaned pretty left. I was taught from an early age to care for people and the world around us and conservatism always proved to be the opposite of that. Realized I was gay when I was about 13, too, and LGBT groups are usually incredibly left leaning, so I was exposed to leftist ideas as a young'n. Read Marxist theory in HS and have been a dirty commie ever since lol

I guess it occurred quite naturally. I was raised in a pretty conservative family, however my extended family was more far right than my father. I still havent found out if my father is closer to centrist than far into the blue quadrant...he did like Trump but I have no clue if his opinions changed since January 6th or not. He isnt very open about politics. But the rest of the family however very much is. I am LGBTQIA+ and they were extremely opposed to my identity and my step mom pretty much forced me out of my home with the ultimatum "either quit the trans bullshit or leave" so I was homeless for a year. That also opened my eyes to life in poverty and societal injustice and neglect on ALL TYPES of marginalized groups.

Sadly I DID have a slight chuddy phase when it came to LGBT issues because of people like Blair White but I can say confidently I never went as far as to agree about right wing politicians, right wing policies, the JQ, or anything else. I think I realized what was going on when YouTube started recommending me channels like Hunter Avalone (before he became a social democrat) and even creators as bad as No Bullshit (you know, straight up Nazis). It was a huge wakeup call and when my gf came out as non-binary at the time before coming to terms on being a binary trans woman, I really started to accept all types of gender identities. The old me was all just cope over my transphobic family and thinking if I wasn't as "crazy" as the SJW queer community then they will accept me. Thankfully my Dad is learning to accept me regardless now so that's why I think he's more center than the rest of the family. I started watching a lot of left content on YouTube and debates and while I know some debate bros aren't the greatest, I think it helped me look into more social and some economic/business ethics in the current state of America and educated me a lot about how the right thinks and their tactics to pull apolitical people in. I also now see how people like Milo Stewart (who got sooooo much shit when they made that everyone is racist video) is INCREDIBLY based and right, even at the time and was a very VERY smart kid. I certainly wasn't ready to accept that at the time and now after my experiences and based on statistics and evidence, really appreciate that they were ahead of the time on the political forefront. I think a lot of the "SJW" talking points are actually really true now and I feel horrible for ever shutting them down all those years ago (and I blame the Gamergate stuff for that even though I wasn't directly involved in the gaming community). 

Over the years I got more and more left, and now I am very much in the green quadrant. I would say beliefs align with Chomsky the most. I am always open to learning more of your guy's viewpoints from all over the spectrum and hearing out the reasons why you all think that. I am ALWAYS willing to shift my opinions on topics given good well researched arguments for it. 

My dad was a miner in Wales so was involved in all the strikes, he also was involved in homeless charity work for years. He gave me a very strong sense of fair and unfair which kinda led me towards leftism as i politically developed.

basically my dad is an absolute proletarian G

When I think about it, I think that Ive always been left leaning with my ideas and personal morals. From a young age, I never understood why money and objects held more value than actual tangible lives. And how we as a species can go from living in caves, to discovering technology to take us to space. Yet we as a species still can't figure out how to truly solve our issues without violence. It wasn't  till the pandemic however that I actually found words and ideas/theories that fit me and what I believe in. Shoutout to the TikTok punks for turning me into a comrade.

Whenever I learned that every nation has its own ruling class and the only countervailing power to those interests, which are the interests of powerful corporations, is a government by the people. I think one’s leanings are rooted in childhood, upbringing and early experiences, but enlightenment is a matter of a combination of reading and maturing. I became politically aware in my early 20s.

reading about alternative stuff, basically punk rock. i actually was kinda conservative b4

I was super conservative because that's what my parents taught me. I got social media from a young age however so I was exposed to a lot of different beliefs. In seventh grade I was horrible mental health wise. I would spend hours trying to make myself prettier to fit into beauty standards. I would sit on my phone and watch TikTok for hours as well to escape. I heard a lot of body positivity on there which led me to learn the roots of these problems. capitalism being the main ones. I also came out that year. Faced a lot of hate. researching the true meaning and cause behind social constructs and norms really helped me to become confident in myself. I feel better as a leftist

Idk im black and  was in middleschool during the edgy 2016 anti jsw era and like all the white kids around me were becoming right wing zealots so when i was becoming political this ideology just seemed to be in my best black interest. i use becoming poltical loosely because ive been politically aware my whole life. you kind of have to be as a black queer kid.

i was born into a white middle class family in a conservative area and could've been easily a equally conservative person, but pretty early on in my childhood i recognized that i was queer and that pretty much set me on the path of being left wing. however i am now a anarcho-communist, and i guess what radicalized me was the riots in the USA back in 2020, everything just kinda opened my eyes to things. 

i'm very happy i didn't end up like my neo nazi father, i hate that i could've been like him if i just didn't watch the news or ignored feelings about my identity. 

i was raised in a left-wing enviroment, but actually became more right wing before getting involved with communism. my mum has always been a socialist, and my father doesn't speak much of politics but when he does from what he says i could imagine him being the same or a mild libertarian variety of communism. i was raised left-wing, before getting involved with those "debunking" videos on youtube. at first it was atheists debunking religious people, then men debunking what they called feminazis (anyone who pointed out any issue with the patriarchy). i got to the point of watching people claim black people were racist and trans people were mentally ill, even dabbling with a bit of ben shapiro, before i took a sharp turn left wing. when i was older i began to read left wing theory, eventually reaching marxist-leninist theory and becoming a communist

I grew up in a steel mill town and when there was a ton of layoffs including my dad while CEOs made record profits when I was young started it. I would always move more and more left and after a spannish professor from chile talked to me and showed io postino in college I got more serious about organizing and getting involved.

Despite being born in a very far right family. Just the combined effects of being impoverished and having a natural interest in academia lead me to being very left wing. Something something reality has a left-wing bias (don't quote me on that).

as a kid i was always more socially liberal and generally more accepting of people as the pandemic began and I had more acess to social media I became a liberal, i was very bad at being a leftist if that makes sense but as I grew up so did my conviction for my beliefs and politics :> I'm now much more well read and informed!! 

I've always been left-ish leaning in the past, the "hey, maybe corporations could profit less if it meant stopping climate change, right?" (oh, the sweet innocence) and so was my mom, but both her and my dad are still pretty much fed on the big media lies about socialism and the likes. By the age of 14 I was leaning towards the right a lot, but it didn't last long as the candidate I was rooting for turned out to be an absolute piece of shit. My real radicalization started when I got in a very diverse and left leaning school at 15 and finally at 17 I got a girlfriend who comes from a very politically engaged and leftist family, she taught me a lot and really widened my views on the world around me. We're still together, btw! TL;DR: my marxist girl made me a commie.

My country had elected the most leftist party 3 consecutive times. I used to live in a house beside a church, because my parents used to be conservative pastors. I was raised to hate communism (obviously, their definitions of "communism" were flawed) and progressivism. Some months ago, i stated to search about what communists actually think. 

I've been a socialist for as long as i can remember, but I became some what of a reactionary when, from ages 11-17, i became rather racist and homophobic and turned into somewhat of a Limonovist NazBol. I escaped that mindset and became a normal, relatively progressive socialist when i stopped hanging out with fascists. The moment i cut them out of my life was the moment i could undo brainwashing.

I was like 9 when Trump got elected, and was at the time thanks to a combo of influence from my parents, my country's political direction at the time and basic moral values taught to me as a little kid, a more, moderate, even close to centrist liberal. 

That didn't stay that way for long- a year or two later, and I was getting increasingly more conservative. Not like far right or anything, but like decently building up to be a moderate conservative. My influences were a combination of reading about Nixon's earlier days as a politician, EmpLemon videos and Gamergate stories off the web.

That continued for maybe another year or two, but after a few incidents, I had begun rethinking my whole political direction. I turned back to the left after a period of deep thought and research (it helped that I was somewhat smart and always interested in academia and research amongst things, making my u-turn more of a possibility). 

At first, I identified as a soft left social democrat, essentially on line with at moderate expectations the Blair-Clinton axis of politics and on the more leftist expectation people like Harold Wilson, Jack Layton, Bob Hawke, JFK, RFK/Bobby and MLK (who, btw, all still pretty big political heroes).

Then I got into the more radical stuff going into high school, and sorta evolved my tastes from there. Eventually, a combination of taking notice of the social direction of my country and the world, a good amount of research, my moral code getting refined, some wishful daydreaming and a lot of emotional and mental readjusting, sorta caused me to enter my current state of political thought.

I'm currently a progressive democratic socialist. Yeah, I know, I went from a soft left SocDem to a hard left progressive DemSoc- a combo of economic socialism, equality, liberty, welfare, civil rights, work rights, union powers and so on

Grew up with some of these values, but a combo of being surrounded by a progressive society, a liberal social environment, a diverse school and some very interesting ideas from my parents, amidst other things, helped shape my political compass into the one I follow today.

What a journey- anyways TL;DR I'm a progressive DemSoc.

so i grew up in catholic school from kindergarten to senior year and i remember loving my seventh grade teacher and he loved the orange man and so i did (i know, ew)  ive always loved history and different religions and learning about them and so as i learned the more i was like oh wow dude this shit is fucked.  i then realized that i was queer and that kind of snowballed it for me ig.  i realized that i was far left after my government class in senior year when i cried after class because i just wished that we could rebuiled the systems in our country and start from scratch. then i found leftist influencers like madeline pendleton and just wrapped myself in the culture and am now lowkey obsessed.