Editor's note: This column is part of Changing Minds, a USA TODAY Opinion series. Ahead of the November midterm elections, we talked with people who changed their political beliefs after years of seeing things a certain way. We'll publish their stories over the next few days.

I remember the moment I realized my politics were different from my parents’.

We watched "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" most weeknights growing up in our progressive Detroit household. As a kid, I laughed along without thinking much about it. Then one night he did a segment on gun control and something didn't sit right. The show went after the most extreme pro-gun positions it could find – the easy targets – while the stronger arguments on the other side went unaddressed. I didn't say anything, but I noticed.

After that, I started noticing more. Unfair representations of conservative positions. Double standards applied to Fox News that didn't apply to other networks. I bit my tongue because I didn't yet have the framework to push back, but I started reading, and the more I read, the more I found myself agreeing with the other side.

In the years that followed, I went from quietly skeptical to staunchly conservative. That trajectory is rarer than the opposite – most kids drift left of their parents, not right – but I'm proof that it happens, and there are many reasons why.

Ben Shapiro, Edmund Burke were stepping stones on my path to conservatism

I wasn't one of those kids who was always interested in politics. I cared about hockey and video games. My parents never forced their views on me – "The Daily Show" and NPR were always on, but they let me find my own way, something I'm grateful for.

My first exposure........

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