It’s Thanksgiving. Be Thankful. And Happy.
Moe Lane offers short, succinct advice on “How to talk politics with liberal family members at Thanksgiving this year.”
You’ll recall that last year Organizing for Action urged its members to talk up Obamacare at the dinner table. My assessment still stands:
Here’s a crazy idea: Treat your family members as people you love and appreciate — or at least tolerate — instead of targets for political conversion. You only get one or two families in this life — the one you’re born into, and the one you marry into. Maybe if you’re lucky, you become “like a son” or “like a sister” to another. There’s a lot to talk about in this world beyond politics, and chances are you’re not going to persuade disagreeing relatives, anyway.
From one of my favorite, and most personal essays, from 2008:
By midday, the first round of relatives will start showing up at your door. From California to Maine, families will begin the complicated logistics of who parks where, and who will box in whom in the driveway. Does this need to be put in the oven? Is there room for this in the fridge? Have you basted recently? Has anyone seen the gravy boat?
Down the hall from the kitchen, Americans across the country will check in to Detroit to see if its NFL team has gotten any better. The early afternoon game of the Lions against the Team That Isn’t the Lions has had little meaning or playoff implications — at least since Barry Sanders retired. But that means football fans are able to watch objectively, just to appreciate the game as it is played — and there’s a good chance that a player you’ve never heard of will have an unexpectedly good day, claiming a Turkey-related award from a network color commentator. A few hours later — having established that, no, Detroit has not gotten any better — football fans will bid farewell to the Motor City for another year.
Later in the day, Dallas plays Not Dallas in a game that often matters — but by that time, America’s Team is competing with America’s Feast. Those who care about the game’s outcome will drop utensils conspicuously in order to dart into the den and check the score before returning to the table with their third or fourth clean fork.
By early evening at my house, my father-in-law will offer to continue our bizarre tradition of a shot of Thanksgiving tequila. There will be toasts, laughter, prayers.
You can probably guess the topics of conversation and points of contention around your table already, as every family has its hardy perennials. If you’re reading this site, you might be discussing the election. In my case, I’ll rejoin my efforts to trigger a reenactment of the Titanic brawl of a few years’ back over whether Philadelphia is a dead city.
Nobody’s arguing politics at this table. Don’t they look happy?