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.
Yeah, that's what did it. Stories about soldiers violating children in front of their parents (although to my knowledge unconfirmed) really just shook me , in addition to the Abu Graihb revelations.
Just a descent into disillusionment and disgust from there.