BTW, I checked your home page. Don't feel bad, my first vote was in '72, for McGovern. I followed that with a vote for Carter...lol.
I made up for it in '80, though. My German neighbors were scared to death of Reagan (they were low information...lol). By then, my German was good enough to engage them in political conversation. The light came on Inauguration Day, when the Iranian hostages landed at Ramstein.
I’ve prayed for forgiveness ever since, lol (seriously though, I can’t do enough penance for that). The one good thing is, it made me determined to never be that uninformed and herd mentality about voting and politics ever again as long as I live. I’ve done my darndest to keep to that, even when it comes to candidates on “our side”). It’s kind of like, no one is more against smoking than a reformed smoker (though I hope I’m never such a pain in the azz as some of them are).