Same. Been around since thujone's original realignment threads. Never once posted or read a CR post before Nov 4, 2020. Just no interest.
But I was naive: I thought that even Trump's most ardent supporters were in on the joke and realized that he was lying through his teeth. I assumed that their thinking was somewhere along the lines of, "He's so funny when he trolls the liberal media and makes them dance." Stupid, but I figured mostly harmless for this little 4 year experiment.
Then, in 2020, I heard what I'd consider otherwise smart people say--and truly mean--things like, "You'll never hear about COVID again after November." As if the entire world and medical communities united in a conspiracy to make sure an American President lost an election. Then, people parroting obvious lies about stolen elections from a dude who has been baselessly crying fraud for every election since Obama. And it was a wake up call: "Holy shit. People truly believe the words spewing out of this narcissistic moron's mouth. That can't be a great sign for our electorate/society."
The open hatred for those you share a country with built around such blatant lies--and widespread appeal of those culture wars and conspiracies--was disheartening, culminating in 1/6. Even after that pathetic debacle, the temperature hasn't lowered. I don't know where we go from here.
All of this also corresponded with my first child, my daughter, being born in December 2019. Now, it's become nearly impossible to blissfully ignore politics like I used to when one party's official mottos are "We can't fix anything 100%, so why bother trying at all?" and "Fuck the future. Got mine." It's embarrassing the world that we're willfully leaving for the next generation.