When I was 18, I left Mormonism and became fairly left-leaning in my politics. I moved to Chicago and was surrounded for many years by people who believed the same things I did, or said they did.

Then I moved back to Utah for grad school. A few people recently pointed out that my turn back toward conservatism began when I moved back to Utah and found myself, at least statistically speaking, among more conservative people than can be found in Chicago.

However, what really turned me away from Leftist politics wasn’t conservatives - I still despise so much of Republican platform - but rather the environment at the graduate school I attended.

This college was a small private arts school and was exclusively populated with radical leftist professors. In a Masters in Teaching program, the message of social activism and the guilt of white privilege was taught more than any skill pertaining to effective teaching.

I saw the natural endgame of leftist dogma. It was a total echo chamber. Professors were absolutely obsessed with privilege, race, ability, class, and anything which could be construed as contributing to a hierarchy.

Everything was “problemetized” - a word I came to hate - and compared to a non-existent utopia world where everybody got along and we were all treated exactly the same.

One student, a conservative who refused to drink the punch, was persuaded not to be a teacher and got her MEd instead, because the faculty couldn’t bear the thought of her facing students with her unrepentant privilege.

I didn’t particularly care for this girl, but didn’t dislike her either. She was obnoxious, for sure, but her views weren’t out of line except for the fact that she was in a radical leftist program.

One class, during Alternatives to Capitalism day (at which no economists were present), she asked a very good question, which was sarcastically answered by another student who shut her down using social justice dogma.
The whole class burst into applause.

I didn’t participate in the applause, but neither did I speak up. I regret that. Toward the end of the program, I began to speak up more about how problematic so many parts of the program were. I failed one assignment because it required atonement for nonexistent racism,

and I refused to do it. My teachers were perplexed and offended. Sometimes I would point out how what they were teaching was actually quite racist, and after class they would tell me that they had never considered that perspective before.

How was that possible, I wondered? How, in a place of debate and enlightenment and rigorous research, was only one side of an argument presented? Why was there never any other explanation given for anything besides racism and privilege? Why did they stoke such anger & resentment?

And they were so totally hypocritical and unproductive. Their children went to private schools; they lived in the best neighborhoods; all but two had never taught public school.

It was, ironically enough, not within Utah’s conservative culture, but rather when I was embedded deep within the most extreme of the Left that I discovered how totally disgusting and condescending their views were.

One of my best friends in the program was a blind Brazilian dude. At the end of one class that was centered around the White journey towards non-racism, he asked the teacher what he was supposed to have learned. Sheepishly, she took the book off the curriculum.

Another teacher thanked me for being his good friend - THANKED me. Why? Because, despite all their protestations to the countrary, they view people like him - racial, class, & ability minorities - with pity and contempt.

They appoint themselves as the virtuous saviors of those in desperate need of help, and then do everything they can to separate themselves and their children from them. It’s disgusting, and I was disgusted by it.

I’m no conservative, but I find myself increasingly rooted in liberal AND conservative values. I support gay marriage and many social welfare programs; I love the first amendment. I believe we need a strong police force, and more police accountability.

I believe racism exists, but that people of color are not helped by cringey white people and massive companies prostrating themselves on social media and then going back to lives as normal. I think we need more debate and exposure to different ideas.

But more than anything, I am completely, 100% sure that the Left is not what it claims to be. It is not kind. It is not empathetic. It doesn’t care for women or trans people or immigrants. It is envious, greedy, angry, bitter, and power hungry. Don’t fall for it.