I used to have political arguments with my dad all the time, but like in a fun debate team way. It really was a fun part of our relationship until 2020… and then shit got real when I moved to a big city and the fun was gone.

When I moved home for a year, the first few months were rough. Lots of anger, lots of pain, but eventually I came to realize nothing I could say would do anything- to my family I was just woke end of story. So I stopped talking politics at all with them, and started talking about music, or yard work, or how we like our coffee. Honestly that opened things up later on to have more honest conversations that were more level headed. Frankly I got him to agree with DEI as a concept so long as I avoided buzzwords or call it DEI by name.

My dad is still the same guy- still funny, he’s still bright, he’s still kind and would absolutely help a child on the side of the road, he just listened to too much patriot radio. I still call him, but we had to realize our relationship and who we are to each other comes first. Politics might change but he’s always my dad and I’m always his son. Besides, when I came out as bi at 16 he was the only one who told me he loved me so that’s gotta mean something. He’s still in there.

I mean unless you spend thousands of dollars on targeted ads in 2016 but that’s totally different.

Also accepting imperfect allies is huge.

I feel like this is where the debate gets lost in the fog-

Access to abortion isn’t about killing babies. It isn’t about population control. It isn’t about avoiding a christian based moral accountability for having unprotected sex.

It’s about consent and an individuals ownership over their body.

The opposite of a government controlling what a anyone can and cannot do with their body is letting the people have full control to what happens to their body.

In this case both the no abortions and forced abortions camps are on the same side. They are about control.

The enemy of my enemy ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Hot take (?):

It’s fantastic that there is a branch of MAGA who hates the corporate Internet as much as we do.

Hey, at least it brought us here. And now that Lemm.ee is going away I’m doing this whole thing again.