Politics and Thanksgiving

Ah, Thanksgiving.  On Thursday we celebrate a holiday of grace, where we stop and remember what are the things we are thankful for.  In homes around the nations, in fifty states and possibly even DC, we gather together with family we may only see a few times a year -- or once.

My best girl and I will be together, but we'll be by ourselves at home this year, just the two of us; the kids are visiting for Christmas but can't get away next week, but that's been known for a while and we'll see them in a few more weeks regardless.  Turkey together with them can wait.  The two of us are going to share an honest-to-goodness Bojangles fried turkey, and yes, since it was going to be the one time it would just be the two of us for Thanksgiving, we laughed together and said "Bojangles -- we'll never get to do it again!"

Wish us well -- but I digress.

Last Thanksgiving was a mere two-weeks-and-change after the 2016 election surprise.  Donald Trump, who was thought by the left as having no chance in the election, was the president-elect and already starting to put together his transition and leadership team.  The snowflakes of the world showed up to their family Thanksgiving in a fog, not yet resentful so much as numbed.

This year, though, it is likely not going to be pretty.  You see, of those voters under 30, only 37% voted for President Trump, while of those over 45, some 53% did.  I would happily ascribe this to the Cubbyhole Theory (which you can read about here), and that's quite an accurate assessment in my view.

But this is not psychiatry; we are not helped by identifying and naming a condition and then walking away.  We have to deal with it, and Thanksgiving, with all that family stuffed in around a turkey and stuffing, well, it's going to blow up this year.

Or not happen.

You see, Trump Derangement Syndrome is at work in colleges all over the nation.  Facilitated by social media, where people can either hide behind anonymity and vent their spleen, or communicate with only a select group of identical-thinking peer snowflakes, the facts have become subordinate to opinions.  And those differences with the thinking of others no longer are hashed out in discussion.

People no longer know how to carry on a civilized conversation, and become so convinced (q.v. the social media isolation I just mentioned) of the rightness of their positions, that they presume that anyone who argues a point is a Nazi.  Period.  That's it.

Case in point coming, and you and I know this is going to happen next week all over. 

I have a snowflake grand-niece, a doctoral student at a large university halfway across the country.  Growing up an only child, she was extremely close to her aunt (her dad's sister and his only sibling), all her life.  Then came 2016.  A Facebook post here, a tweet there, after an election loss (after a primary loss; she was a Bernie type), and she no longer speaks to her aunt.  Aunt, who is only early-forties herself, has reached out periodically in recent months, but with no response.

I'm not going to try to take sides here, not too much.  Let's just say that the generational effect is strongly at work, and our snowflake's Thanksgiving, at the home of her dad and mom, will be absent the aunt.  The aunt (and uncle by marriage) have decided that they want the niece to be able to travel back to her parents for Thanksgiving, without having their disagreement and non-communication causing problems for the rest of the family.  So aunt and uncle will stay home, even though the entire rest of the family also disagrees with my grand-niece's leftist politics as well.

But ... it's not that this happened, or will happen next week.  It is that it is going to be replicated throughout the country over and over.  Families will agree on turkey and stuffing, but even the football games will incite political arguments (thanks, NFL, for not cleaning that up before Thanksgiving).  Normally, a Detroit-Minnesota game at turkey time would be watched tolerantly as background (Detroit against anybody is never an interesting game, after all), but this year, you can count on arguments before the turkey comes out, especially if even one NFL clown kneels during the anthem.

And worse, as is the case in my family, there will be preventative no-shows.  That's going to be the sad part.  I mean, families have always argued when they come together.  Thanksgiving isn't exactly a respite from that, but it has always "come with the territory."  Brothers argue about whatever; the foodies argue over recipes for stuffing.  But when the goodbyes come around, it's all love and hugs.

This is much worse.  I am happy to come down on one side here; I believe it is the left and their self-appointed, social media-fueled snowflakes who are showing an intolerance of conservative points -- I'm a conservative, and I actually welcome the opportunity to debate factual matters with leftists and hear what they're saying. 

I would do that every Thanksgiving if I could and twice on Sundays.  And that intolerance and unwillingness to engage to learn what the other side is saying, well, that is what is causing people to decide simply not to attend, not to want to be a flashpoint for a leftist's ranting.  And to stay home.

I know it is happening all over.  The Thanksgiving of my youth is going to be a faded memory of turkey and football, where the disputes were about whose running back was better, whose stuffing was more flavorful, and where we could argue politics in glee.  Arguments were loud but familial, knowing that no permanent rifts would form, and by the time we bid adieu and traveled home, we were only happy to have been able to be together.

If we have gotten to the point where people no longer talk, then we have to accept that it is the case, and look forward to see how we can address it.  Will our grand-niece see that her unresponsiveness to her aunt changed the dynamic for a long-awaited family holiday?  Will she feel the least bit apologetic or guilty about it?  Inquiring minds want to know.

But it's pretty sad.

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
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