"Minor" political events that had a big impact in shaping your outlook

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Jim McGreevey's resignation. I was living in New Jersey at the time and it taught me both that not everybody who's a member of an oppressed group is a good person and that many of the people around me, including people I liked and still like, were capable of a level of casual bigotry that I still find shocking to look back on.