They were pretty apolitical till coronavirus hit. Now my dad thinks it’s way overblown and they’ve bought into the media narrative that Antifa is literally committing terror attacks. I called my mom today and told her I went to the Breonna Taylor protest in LA and she said that if she hadn’t have been hanging out with drug dealers that wouldn’t have happened to her. It really makes me not even want to come and visit them anymore.
I have been trying but they’ve definitely always been pro cop. When I argue for defunding the police they’re convinced that it means getting rid of police entirely, which is something I’d like but I know they’ll have a harder time agreeing with. I’m definitely not done trying to steer them in a better direction.
A good line of attack for pro-cop folks, I've found, is to talk about how much of what they do is a waste of their precious time. "Why are we training people to handle violence, gangs, murderers and rapists, riot control, and so on, and then getting them to hand out speeding fines or hassle folks over a gram of weed? They have important work to be doing. We're basically taking soldiers and making them act like babysitters, instead of hiring a bunch of babysitters to do that part of the work."
(They're not actually being trained for that sort of thing, but pro-police folks refuse to believe that)
Try something along the lines of "someone giving out traffic tickets and breaking up noisy parties doesn't need a gun."