It was a process. I don't remember any key moments before reading What Uncle Sam Really Wants, but I do remember that the book was eye opening in terms of the extent, not so much in terms of the way things are in general.

Gulf War I was different in that everyone was honest about it being a war, rather than calling it something else. I was around many people who were as against it as I was sure they would be. It didn't see anything much different as a result.

Clinton's Yugoslav warmongering was the first time I used the internet to deeply research what was really happening. I made a website organizing the most important sources into arguments against it from every angle. I remember that war as one that a lot of supposed liberals supported and believed the bullshit justifications for.

After W became president I listened to liberals speaking and thought they sounded like Gore being president was important to them, but counting all the votes and enacting the will of the people much less so. It was also memorable in terms of... wow people are just gonna move on and take even this.

0n 9/11 I saw liberals lose their fucking minds. I had magazine subscriptions to The Nation, Mother Jones and others, and saw them all succum to the fear and fall in to line. I found counterpunch at that time, and it was the only one that stuck to its principles in the aftermath.

2016 was the point at which I was done with Democrats forever. The big eye opener then was the Democrat's own 50 cent Internet army and the lnsultingly stupid horseshit they tried to gaslight us with. r/politics... fuck those assholes with sandpaper. They never got any better after that, even to this day. That was when I realized that people who call themselves Democrats and / or repeat blueanon propaganda are enemies every bit as much as true red Republicans, and every bit as evil.