This is very situational, and sadly may not be realistic for everyone, but I need y’all to understand that a very important part of political activism is fucking talking to your conservative or moderate friends and family.
My dad voted for Trump in 2016. He’s a middle class white evangelical from Arkansas. He raised me with conservative Christian values, just like his parents raised him. When he voted Trump, he was holding his nose, but he didn’t feel too bad about it, and went on to vote red down the ticket in the 2018 midterms, as well.
But I started college in 2017. Higher education and independence changed everything for me, and I went home over holidays and summers with fire in my belly and a thousand arguments ready at the drop of a hat, to my father’s dismay.
I remember crying in my room after emotional, intense arguments with him. I told him over and over that I felt betrayed by his choice to vote for a man who admitted to sexually assaulting women, who built his platform on dehumanizing immigrants and the disabled, who spread overtly-racist rhetoric, who flouted the values of kindness and self-discipline that I’d been raised on. And my dad always had some justification about the “greater good”: fighting against abortion, bolstering the economy, getting other Christian politicians into office.
But over time, as we grew further apart and I lost my will to discuss anything with him at all, he softened. He started asking me why I thought the way I did about the things we disagreed about. He would listen to my answers without interruption, and mull them over afterward instead of expressing his own opinion. And all the while, he watched the Trump presidency become cruel and absurd and devastating.
The first time he openly expressed regret to me, I had come home for a weekend after Kavanaugh was confirmed to SCOTUS. My dad realized he had helped elect a man who preyed on women… and that man had opened the door to more predators. I can’t tell you what it felt like for him to admit that he’d made a mistake, not just in voting for Trump but in defending him for so long. We kept arguing, but it was more debating than fighting. I knew he was capable of seeing my side of things, even if it took a while, and he knew I wasn’t just a sensitive college student with shallow new ideas about the world.
And then 2020 hit. Specifically, George Floyd was murdered, and the events that followed played out on the national stage. My dad was incredibly shaken by it. He asked me if I had any books from college about racial issues. I loaned him The New Jim Crow, one of the required readings for my Race and the Law class. Then I gave him Just Mercy. Then he watched the documentary 13th. Then he joined a racial harmony group he learned about through one of the few Black families at our church and insisted our whole family come. He held up signs at a protest against Confederate monuments in our conservative southern town. In three years, he went from defending Trump’s comments about “Black-on-Black crime” to publicly advocating for racial justice and opposing the death penalty.
We went together to vote in the 2020 primaries. I couldn’t help asking who he’d voted for; I didn’t even know if he’d asked for the Republican or Democratic ticket. He admitted he’d voted for Bernie. fucking. Sanders, then made me promise not to tell my grandma he’d voted liberal. When the election rolled around in November, he voted Biden. I’m sure he held his nose to do it, just like he held his nose voting in 2016. But I know he doesn’t regret it.
I am, of course, unbelievably lucky to have a parent who loved me enough, and was empathetic enough, to choose his relationship with me over his strongly-held opinions. He kept searching for truth because, as much as he’ll deny it, he’s a very smart and curious person. No degree of intelligence or curiosity makes you immune to propaganda, especially if you were raised not to question the party line. It’s easy to dismiss our conservative, conspiracy-pilled loved ones as stupid, hypocritical, and cruel. Sometimes they are. But sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they will bend to keep their relationships from breaking. Sometimes, if they can be made to understand that their beliefs and actions are harming someone they love, they will make concessions. And sometimes they just need one person in their life to put a foot down, to be vulnerable and assertive and argumentative, to bring the impact of their politics close to home.
As the most important election of our lifetimes approaches, do not put peace over progress. If you have someone like my dad, someone who is good-willed and smart and loves you more than their own opinions, tell them how you feel. Tell them what their choices will mean for you, for your friends, for your community. Tell them what they could lose: your trust, your affection, your respect. Don’t avoid conflict if it could be productive. Because my conflict with my dad didn’t just win him over–it won over my moderate mom and one of my conservative brothers. And it put us in community with other like-minded people and led my parents to a healthier and kinder faith.
All of this to say, there is hope in conflict. There is hope in our relationships with people who think differently from us. There is hope in exposing your fear and anger and pain to people you love. And hope is a form of activism.
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Chaotic fem. reader/Best friend Bakugo
"I'm ready to be a mother," you stated out of nothing.
Bakugo was obviously taken back by your comment.
"Did you see something on tiktok that made you think that?" he looked at you while you kept scrolling in your phone. "You need a partner to procreate dumbass,"
"I know I need a man to procreate, but I thought that you could help me on that one," you bit your nails, showing less interest than a rock.
He left his phone aside so he could analyze you properly if you were talking seriously or not.
"I'm not going to introduce you to my side kick, He's like twenty," he tested.
"Twenty??? I'm almost twenty eight, that's still a reasonable age gap, " you gasped because his side kick didn't look like he was twenty. You thought that he would at least be twenty-three.
"No it's not"
After almost ten years of being friends, Bakugo was so used to your shit. The time that you wanted to go surfing? He laughed at your face when you didn't make it to the ocean because you were afraid of sharks. What about the time when you wanted a hamster? He said no, but you got it anyway, so when you lost it, obviously, he gave you shit about it, but after that, he was on all four looking for your little pet in the dorms.
"Fine." That wasn't your main goal, so you let it go. "Actually, I was thinking of you doing a quick hand job in my bathroom and giving me your sperm"
The silence between the two of you couldn't be more unbearable. Bakugo's eyes twisted in your direction while his cheeks were slowly growing a clear shade of rose.
"What? No!"
He was absolutely losing it. The impact of your sayings got him standing from his seat, almost panting. You and him? In his best dreams, but you didn't need to know about his secret intentions.
"Think about it. It's a great idea." You stepped out of your couch and went to his side.
"How are you going to explain that your kid has similar features with your best friend?" he flinched when you approached him. You were so close that your scent invaded him whole.
Bakugo was trying with all his heart and mind to think logically, but you, your body next to him, and your puppy eyes were making it so hard, in both ways.
"I don't know, and I don't care, I'll run away from the country, and you'll never see us again"
You were one of the best students from UA, right after him and Yaoyorozu, but right now, he was doubting if it was just an act.
"That's so clever." he rolled his eyes at you and walked to the kitchen to grab a glass of water, hoping that you would drop the subject and hop onto another like getting a bunny or going sky diving.
"I know, right? Now go in there, do the nasty job, and I'll put it inside of me, I'll even turn my body upside down so it sticks, " you jolted in joy, missing his usual sarcasm.
He almost spilled the water from his mouth to your face.
"Who the fuck told you that?" he spated obnoxiously.
"Kaminari," you shrugged.
"Are you even listening to yourself!?"
When he thought that that couldn't get any worse, you named the only person who could make him go crazy just by opening his mouth.
"I'm desperate. It made sense when he told me"
He could believe anything at this point. He was actually thinking that he was dead because what was happening between you two was a complete nonsense.
"So you are telling me this is something you've had in mind for a while?
You simply nodded, and he stayed quiet, considering everything you said. He wasn't looking for anything serious because of you. He passed for all seven stages of grief when he realized that he was in love with you and your silliness, so he decided long ago that he wouldn't date anyone because he wasn't interested in anyone but you.
"I know that look on your face," you smiled and danced around the kitchen.
You weren't looking for anyone either. Having Bakugo as a male figure in your life left the bar very high for others to match. They didn't meet your expectations anymore like Bakugo did, always by your side, laughing at your bad jokes and giving you his hand when you most needed, buying food and cooking for you, he has even bought you flowers for half a decade on valentine's day, a large bouquet of red roses every year since then.
"I'll do it," he told you, and you jumped excited on him. He grabbed you by your thighs, catching you on the fly. "Two conditions"
"Yeah, just name it," you batted your eyes at him.
"I'll take you on a proper date first, and you won't run away with my kid, got it?"
Bakugo thought that he was only doing you a favor, but he never saw coming that it only took one date to make you fall for him in the way he always wanted.
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