Lemme take you back to Lubbock for a minute (I’m sorry! We’ll be back home soon, I know it’s awful!)
You look across the vast, flat, brown prairie, and see not one, not two, but zero Democrats. And this is a
college town. Everyone is their own brand of firebrand paleoconservative, from the Ben Shapiro fanboys
on the Texas Tech campus to the likely segregationists lining my grandparents’ street. This is the city I
took my first steps in, and continue, sadly, to take occasional steps in every summer. My parents are
pretty progressive given that this is where they lived most of their adult lives before I was born, but I was
still raised a when-convenient Christian and devout political moderate from birth. But during the 2016
election cycle I was inundated with stories of presidential candidates and their policies, supporters, etc.
Instead of ignoring these stories, I investigated them with an open and objective eye and settled on a
decidedly left-wing conclusion. I think that seventh grade, when most of this personal investigation took
place, had a huge impact on my own beliefs, not only politically, but more generally, and though I know
I have a whole lot of room to grow, I sincerely and simultaneously hope and believe that my current
beliefs are rooted in open-mindedness, fairness, and a continual pursuit of progress, rather than the
stuck-in-the-mud rightism I am all too familiar with.
You look across the vast, flat, brown prairie, and see not one, not two, but zero Democrats. And this is a
college town. Everyone is their own brand of firebrand paleoconservative, from the Ben Shapiro fanboys
on the Texas Tech campus to the likely segregationists lining my grandparents’ street. This is the city I
took my first steps in, and continue, sadly, to take occasional steps in every summer. My parents are
pretty progressive given that this is where they lived most of their adult lives before I was born, but I was
still raised a when-convenient Christian and devout political moderate from birth. But during the 2016
election cycle I was inundated with stories of presidential candidates and their policies, supporters, etc.
Instead of ignoring these stories, I investigated them with an open and objective eye and settled on a
decidedly left-wing conclusion. I think that seventh grade, when most of this personal investigation took
place, had a huge impact on my own beliefs, not only politically, but more generally, and though I know
I have a whole lot of room to grow, I sincerely and simultaneously hope and believe that my current
beliefs are rooted in open-mindedness, fairness, and a continual pursuit of progress, rather than the
stuck-in-the-mud rightism I am all too familiar with.
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