I would have been fully ignorant today and it’s scary to even think about that. I do not have a high opinion of my very recent past self.

Please give yourself a little grace. You did the best you could with the awareness you had, at the time. There's nothing wrong with you, yourself, maybe you can have a low opinion of past opinions.

I'm not trying to nitpick you either. I just think we're too hard on ourselves as human beings, struggling to grow.

You frame it as being ashamed or critical of your past self, but this is one of the most "exciting" things about this current moment. It's a true test of the resiliency of propaganda and chauvinistic social programming.

If it is this re-election that made you shake out of it, not the previous term, that seems to indicate that the reasons you thought that way were either not deeply rooted, or were worn down over time. Either of those explanations are also very exciting when it comes to communicating with people that might be on the same journey as the rest of us.