I'm opposite, most people think I'm am an a-hole...   due to the lack of caring about what others think.  I do me.  

Dont marry yourself to the left or the right, they are both fucked up. Be better. Break the cycle. Rise above. Be a centralist.

Define yourself based on your own observations/research, or don't even bother at all.
You don't need to be more politically left or right. That's your call, and no one else's.

This, pretty much.

It’s okay to just say, “I don’t know, I’m not sure. My feelings and personal experiences favor the Democratic Party. Both parties have some things right and somethings wrong. What I care about is ___________, and that is what the democrats care about too. “

Clearly the guy is trying to be a troll. But I digress.

Stress less over the right vs left, progressive vs conservative issues. Sit in the center, weigh up both arguments and choose which one offers the biggest benefit for everyone in the nation... That way you don't try and shut down your opponents for being... Well. Opponents.

That's very interesting about Australians being racist towards you. It's always fascinating learning about different countries political and cultural differences. It's good to hear you didn't let those bigots get to you. I personally don't care what anyone thinks about my "lifestyle" but when the discrimination is systemic it's a lot harder to just live my life.

Yeah lmao I 100000% agree with you on the media part. Especially nowadays with so much misinformation going around in traditional media. It's crazy.

I'll just say that there is no inherent value in being in the middle. It doesn't make you more right, or even keeled, or virtuous. While it may be a legitimate position, it is just as often as flawed as more extreme positions and often ends up failing a lot of people.

I'll also advise against defining your politics by what you stand against. I think a lot of people fall into the alt-right pipeline by defining themself as against certain positions on the left. I myself fell into that trap for a bit when I was getting into politics. However, if you define yourself by what you stand against, you often end up standing with people who are far more objectionable than the position you originally opposed, and if you don't get out, it is easy to find yourself losing your values. Letting your values lead I think tends to be a good starting point to finding where you stand.

Don't align with any side. Align with the views you find reasonable, for good reasons. Educate yourself about things, ask yourself what's right and what's wrong, be open-minded, be ready to accept you might have been wrong and need to change your opinion. If someone says something unbelievably stupid, stop to think if you might have misunderstood them instead of them being so stupid. Seek the truth and aspire to be moral instead of picking sides. Sometimes, or maybe even often, this might align you with a particular side, and sometimes, or maybe even often, it might align you with the opposing side. Maybe you fall in the middle. Ultimately it doesn't matter though.

That was in the 90s, so things are a little different these days for me and in general as the younger generations are taught to be more accepting (but a few bad eggs still exit cause of their parent teaching them that way). it's funny when I went to the US in 2007 they all thought I was Australian. In Australia people think I'm part Euro  part Aussie because my ascent ain't the full blown Aussie one  lol. People have also told me when I talk to my parents my accent changes to be full on Euro and they can barely understand me lol.

Also back in the 90s you would also see job ads that said stuff like this "All can apply except Indian people" as an example lol. Mind you the Indian population in the 90s was almost non existent where I lived.

Agree that systemic discrimination needs to be knocked out and I guess to a degree each country is at a different length along that journey. Hopefully as a species we keep evolving beyond what we are today and as a planet come up with basic human right values that all countries adopt. It would be nice where in a world for example people don't get stoned because "it is traditional law" for people outside the perceived norm.