First Person

How I Got Mugged by Reality and Became a Conservative

Mike Jensen

Going through a public school system and being taught by teachers who more than lean to the left, my thoughts and ideas were incubated in a bubble of combined confirmation of bias and an arrogant self-assurance. When I started college, I was almost a textbook urban, liberal democrat. ...

Then, to quote Alan Greenspan, I “got mugged by Reality.” I began to have experiences that challenged my worldview. I worked in my local government as an accounting intern for the Department of Streets and I took courses in Economics, but, perhaps most importantly, I realized how empowering conservative ideology can be as a worldview.