librehab

I would have told teenage liberal me to do my homework, wash my hands (gross I know), treat women like human beings, stop gaming, and stick up for people. One of my biggest regrets from my high school days is doing nothing when my friends made fun of vulnerable people. In elementary school I was one of those people, in high school I moved up to being mostly on the sidelines rather than in the crosshairs.

I probably wouldn’t have listened because my parents were already telling me most of these things (on the rare occasions when we actually spoke to each other). The thing that I think ultimately radicalized me as an adult was interacting with democratic party officials in person. So I would tell myself to do that repeatedly in order to quickly learn from experience that no democrat is on your side. Sometimes politicians would even visit our school for like civic engagement events, but they were never democrats, only weird republican candidates who had no chance of winning. This was in a blue area too.

Also, there was one communist in my school. He was an acquaintance, but I would tell teenage me to spend more time hanging out with him.