I know it isn't a single a-ha! moment for most people, but there must have been something that flipped the switch that informed your views into coming to understand that this country is the barbarism route of Luxemburg's Socialism or Barbarism.
For me it was the Iraq War, and the Michael Moore documentary Sicko that pushed me onto that intellectual and emotional understanding.
Growing up in Appalachia
Driving down the beautiful highways they built for the tourists and peeking down the ravine to see overgrown rusted out trailer parks with only one grocery store in 10 miles is wild.
The urban centers are usually pretty well built up, but even 20 miles outside of town is just nothing.