Wishing You a Happily Apolitical Thanksgiving

Perhaps the most peculiar tradition that has been added to Thanksgiving in recent years is the annual spate of essays advising readers how to deal with any political discussions that might arise during a family get-together. Mostly it’s liberal writers and the Democratic Party itself offering debating tips for like-minded readers about how to deal with any crazed right-wing uncle’s or cousin’s objections to Obamacare or a few hundred more thousand immigrants from the Middle East, but occasionally even conservatives will weigh in on how to deal with the left-wing kinfolk’s irrational support for an obviously failed Obamacare system or a flood of refugees from the most insane part of the world, and in every case we think it’s all bosh.

As perhaps the most crazed right-wing cousins of our mostly Republican extended family, one of our favorite dinnertime rants is about how those darn leftists want to politicize even the most personal aspects of our lives. “The personal is the political,” according to the wisdom that feminists passed down to the rest of liberalism, and thus the movie theater and the concert hall and the art gallery that once addressed themselves to the broader human condition are now more narrowly concerned with the latest diktats, those beery sexual encounters between libidinous college students now require consent forms, the well-intentioned opening of a door for a differently-abled person of another color and indeterminate gender is now fraught with potential for some micro-aggression or another, the jokes the guy at the next bar stool tells must now be carefully scrutinized before being laughed at, and even the family gathering for Thanksgiving dinner is seized as an opportunity to harangue that dissenting Uncle into submission.

Well, we’ll have none of that, and an extra helping of the white meat turkey slathered in gravy instead. As much as we appreciate the efforts of the fine folks at the American Enterprise Institute, we’ll ignore their well-considered points to rebut those buttinsky liberal relatives and instead endeavor to steer the conversation toward local sports teams and a piece of that tempting pumpkin pie. We’ll focus on family, food, and football, and all the rest of those still somewhat apolitical things we have to be thankful for. There’s little talk about the politics that will yield any thankfulness at the moment, so we’ll stubbornly insist on at least one day of the year to gratefully contemplate the many blessings that stubbornly persist elsewhere in this mostly wonderful life.

— Bud Norman