I’m a brand-new activist — here’s what got me to join others in the streets

This article I’m a brand-new activist — here’s what got me to join others in the streets was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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I am one of the many people whose interest in politics came only once I had been directly impacted by changing legislation. It’s not a new mentality, and not a story that’s unique to Americans. Most eloquently put into words by Rev. Martin Neimöller in his poem “First They Came,” the tendency to ignore injustices forced upon others means that every affected group has fewer and fewer people fighting on their behalf.

It’s impossible to truly understand an issue until it becomes personal in some way. That’s exactly what happened to me. Withdrawals of federal funding negatively impacted my work in the nonprofit sector, and disbanding the Department of Education resulted in mistakes with my student aid application — and a nightmare trying to get in touch with any of the student help centers.

Within the first few months after the inauguration, I became aware of the rapidly developing uncertainty facing not only my life, but the lives of everyone in this country. Job insecurity, diminished educational prospects, fear of traveling abroad — everything that Americans have had the protected right to do and seek are slowly being restricted.

The reality of these changes really hit me while teaching in a high school classroom. I had to explain to my students that all the great government information and research guides I was telling them about either no longer exist or are unlikely to exist within the next few months. For someone whose job it is to pass down knowledge to new generations, it’s painful to think these kids aren’t going to know how much knowledge is being kept away from them.

For someone who has spent their entire 23 years of life being indifferent towards political change of any kind, navigating the unfamiliar and rapidly evolving landscape of political activism has proven to be the equivalent of navigating a new country and assimilating to a new culture all at the same time. Reading the news from a variety of sources now takes up a considerable portion of my free time, as I struggle to catch up with everything that’s happened in the last few months and what’s changing from day to day. I’ve come into contact with people with wildly different lifestyles and beliefs from my own, to the point where it almost seems like a sort of language barrier when discussing politics. But every day, I’ve been able to make slow and steady progress towards figuring out what issues I’m willing to fight for, and how I should go about doing so.

Defining a belief system

I’ve been a self-proclaimed conservative for my entire life. It’s how I was raised, and to an extent, I still am. But of course, I can’t really say that without being confronted with the all-or-nothing mentality that’s come about in our increasingly polarized political landscape.

I’ll hear things like, “You’re conservative? Wow, you must be against LGBTQ rights.” (I’m trans, and that makes this argument even harder to understand.) Or, “You must be against racial equality, immigration, gun control, welfare…”

Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, conservatives make similarly reductive statements, like, “You’re liberal? Wow, you must be against Christianity, the Second Amendment, working for a living, capitalism…”

What many people fail to realize is the amount of overlap between these groups. Having conservative beliefs isn’t necessarily incompatible with having liberal beliefs. Especially for issues that are completely unrelated in terms of their scope and impact — take gay marriage and gun control, for example. Two issues where the decision made on either one has no bearing on the other. Purchasing a gun doesn’t nullify a same-sex marriage, and gay couples don’t magically make firearms disappear.

One of the earliest and most notable political supporters of homosexual marriage was also a prominent conservative libertarian, Andrew Sullivan, who published the article “Here Comes the Groom: A (Conservative) Case for Gay Marriage”in 1989. This came at a time when liberal politicians failed to support measures for legalizing same sex marriage, viewing support as political suicide. This includes then-Sen. Joe Biden, as well as President Bill Clinton, who signed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996 with the statement “I have long opposed governmental recognition of same-gender marriages.” 

On the other hand, gun ownership is generally seen as a conservative trait — and strict gun control is associated with liberalism. But certain gun control measures have received significant bipartisan support. One of the most notable examples of this is the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022, which includes provisions for enhanced background checks, closing loopholes for those prohibited from purchasing firearms due to domestic violence offenses, implementing extreme risk protection orders, and expanding means through which communities can report risks and prevent gun violence.

Furthermore, nationwide polls have shown that Americans on both ends of the political spectrum support prohibiting individuals with serious mental illnesses purchasing firearms, increasing the minimum age for purchasing any type of firearm to 21 years old, and prohibiting concealed carry firearms without a permit.

From my perspective, recent events have gone beyond being a “liberal” or “conservative” issue, and activism has become a matter of fighting extremism. I was surprised at the number of conservatives I met at the April 5 Hands Off protest. I talked to combat veterans (including a number of Vietnam vets), members of the National Rifle Association and a lot of people with variations on the “pro-conservative, anti-Trump” slogan.

While it is unfortunately common for people to base their like or dislike of a president solely on the label of “Republican” or “Democrat,” I hope that it can become more common for people to make their decisions based on the individual actions of a political figure. There’s never going to be a time when a liberal person agrees 100 percent with a Democratic president’s decisions, and the same holds true for conservatives and Republican candidates. This is especially important for people like me, who are new to political activism, and shouldn’t feel pressured to support only liberal or only conservative causes based solely on those labels.

Understanding demonstrations

Initially, I was hesitant to even consider attending a political demonstration. I first became aware of political protests while in high school, specifically the movement to remove Confederate and other historical monuments. I remember watching the news, seeing footage of rallies where fistfights erupted between antifa activists and white supremacists. With no other frame of reference, I assumed that activism only leads to violence.

Even though the vast majority of protests are peaceful, they do often face violent repression, which comes in many forms. Non-state groups (i.e., private militias) have begun showing a more prominent and weaponized presence at demonstrations of all types, serving to intimidate any opposition. Car-ramming attacks are becoming more common, where vehicles are driven through barriers and into a crowd. And while it is rare, conflicts with counter-protesters have at times erupted into riots, causing injuries and property damage.

That’s exactly what I want to avoid. I’m not fighting or protesting against the police, and it’s not my goal to get arrested.

Within social and political academic circles, it’s an accepted fact that nonviolent protests are significantly more likely to result in positive change than movements that rely on physical force and weaponization. The wide variety of tactics employed in peaceful protests — economic boycotts, marches, strikes — give peaceful protesters the ability to attack single issues from multiple angles, as opposed to only force and intimidation.

Fortunately, that’s all I’ve seen so far. The first protest I went to was the April 5 Hands Off rally in Carson City, Nevada, which had about 7,000 people. Yes, there were some people who felt the need to hurl insults, but that’s to be expected in any large gathering. Nothing has escalated beyond that point, and bit by bit, I’ve felt a lot more confident about going to demonstrations. I went back to the same place on April 19 for the Pissed, Not Paid rally in response to the Nevada governor’s comments on local protesters being paid to oppose him. I felt a lot more confident and a lot safer in terms of meeting new people and being up front rather than hiding in the crowd.

Social media and activism

I’ve never been particularly interested in social media. It’s psychologically exhausting, filled with countless hours of shallow and mind-numbing content. I’ve never understood the need for people to post pictures and videos of everything they do in a day, from eating breakfast to picking up their kids from school.

I finally made an Instagram account a few weeks ago, after realizing that it would be the only way I would be able to find out about events and demonstrations. Logically, I should have come to that conclusion a lot sooner. As a history nerd, I’ve long been familiar with the roles of Facebook and other platforms in reshaping movements around the world. The ability for groups to form, share information and organize gatherings remotely far outpaces the archaic pamphlets and word-of-mouth spread of information among members of smaller, local groups that were inherent to the civil rights movement and older nonviolent struggles.

As soon as I made an account, one thing led to another. I started out with a generic search: “political activism Reno,” trying to find some kind of local group, movement, anything. I came across a very clearly labeled account called Reno-Sparks Activism, which was exactly what I was looking for. I followed the account, and was instantly recommended a slew of other profiles; some that I had heard of, some that I hadn’t. I started following a handful of accounts, and pretty soon my feed was filled with advertisements for local demonstrations, updates on major decisions and bills being passed, and recordings from previous events.

I still don’t post anything on my account, and I have no intent to — particularly since I’m using it solely for political reasons. I value my privacy online, and want to stay mindful of the fact that public posts are visible to everyone from friends to employers. While I do have the right to express my views freely, I choose to do so in person and through my actions.

Freedom of speech applies to everyone

What I’ve observed to be the most difficult concept for people to understand during political demonstrations is that the opposing party has an equal right to hold a demonstration of their own, even in the same place and at the same time. Although I’ve only been to a few protests so far, at each one there’s been a small group of people gathered nearby or driving past, displaying their MAGA signs and various other symbols. I’m not talking about identified hate groups flashing swastikas or open-carrying rifles as a means of intimidation — just people on the opposite end of the political spectrum. And what happens is a barrage of slurs, insults and veiled threats thrown between the two groups, with both sides becoming equally aggressive.

I know that I wouldn’t take someone’s opinion seriously if it’s being screamed in my face and I’m being called names. Even if I agreed with someone, I’d lose respect for both them and their belief system if that’s how they treat me in conversation. That’s what I try to keep in mind when attending these demonstrations: Progress isn’t made through petty arguments, it’s made through well-researched civil discourse, demonstrations highlighting a broad base of public support and public awareness of negative experiences.

Some random guy standing across the street with a MAGA flag isn’t the enemy. Neither is the person who bought a Tesla three years ago and still drives it. They’re not the people making decisions in office, and they’re not the ones who should have collective public outrage directed towards them. That should be saved for more direct messages to elected officials: news interviews, city hall meetings, gatherings outside public offices. Target the organizations and people who create or enable the problems, not those who you may simply disagree with.

There’s nothing wrong with reaching out to friends, family or anyone else on the opposite end of the political spectrum who you want to share your perspectives with. But do it in a way that acknowledges the fact that you’re both people — people with unique experiences who still deserve to have their voices heard.

It’s easy for heated arguments about major political changes to hide the direct impacts that those decisions have on groups and individuals, particularly ones that are already marginalized or are inherently apolitical. Generic statements like “funding cuts” or “immigration enforcement” fail to encompass the actual scope of those issues, but those are the phrases that people see in headlines or hear in passing, developing tightly held convictions from broad generalizations and no personal experience. People can argue about these topics all day without ever having met someone whose life has been changed because of them. And while that’s a completely normal thing, it also overshadows the stories of the people caught up in political turmoil.

I’ve learned so much from reading interviews with people who have been directly impacted by various political decisions. It’s one thing to know that federal research funding has been cut. It’s another thing to listen to the nation’s leading science experts delve into the specifics of what programs have been shut down, what life saving medications are no longer being developed, and what nearly eradicated diseases are making a comeback. I knew that stricter immigration laws would mean increased deportations, but I didn’t understand what that would look like until being told by a middle school teacher that her students’ parents were too afraid to set foot on the school property, and that their school set up hidden evacuation routes just in case ICE came to their classrooms.

There’s still a lot I don’t know about politics and activism, and I don’t think anyone could ever be an “expert” on something that changes so rapidly and unpredictably. But even so, I want to be a part of today’s movement for positive change.

This article I’m a brand-new activist — here’s what got me to join others in the streets was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

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Source: https://wagingnonviolence.org/2025/05/brand-new-activist-what-got-me-to-join/