It’s really hard to zero in on anything in particular that shaped my worldview. It’s not like it was ever a straight line. It’s especially hard to name something everyone would know because most of my political leanings have come from fucking around and finding out—saying ignorant shit that hurt people, and getting to know people who were contradictions to all my assumptions.

Mel Brooks, I suppose. And 80’s action-hero movies, for all they were full of toxic machismo, had a message of taking personal responsibility to save the world for the common folk. Bad guys were always rich and powerful. The ending of Lethal Weapon 2 (“diplomatic immunity, haha” bang “…has just been revoked”) is so spot on. Fuck privilege and power. Of course these same influences make me extremely leery of communism because it was always the Soviets/commies who were the bad guys.

That media informed my morality, and my morals intersecting with lived experience informed my politics. I don’t consider myself a member of any party in particular and used to call myself a right-leaning independent, but now I’m at a point where I think Democrats are pro-corporate ass-rimmers so I don’t know—make of all that what you will.