This Thanksgiving (and Christmas) don't be Molly Jong-Fast

[Valin]

Hot Air

John Sexton

Nov 24, 2021

This blew up today into a real sh*tshow so before I get to the point of all this, let me explain the backstory.

As you’re probably aware, nearly every Thanksgiving it seems some progressive news site publishes a dumb piece about how to talk to your conservative relatives over Christmas. These pieces are inevitably smug and insulting and assume that the average conservative is a QAnon fan or a devoted listener to Alex Jones.

This year, the Atlantic published two competing pieces as part of a newsletter. Tom Nichols wrote one titled “The No-Drama Thanksgiving” which manages to be smug and insulting while also making a fundamentally good point about gratitude not being really compatible with a harangue about the reconciliation bill or whatever political issue has captivated some member of the family.

(Snip)

So, yeah, she’s joking about calling the FBI on your relatives but at the same time she’s quite serious about getting the White House and the president to attempt to revive his popularity by declaring those same people enemies of the republic. That’s not a joke. She means it quite literally.

Which brings me to my advice for everyone who will be getting together with family this Thanksgiving (or over Christmas): Don’t be Molly Jong-Fast. Don’t assume people you’ve barely talked to in a year are political extremists whose only hope to being restored to sanity are the words of pure sanity coming from your mouth. Only a smug jackass would assume something like that. Instead, try to remember that politics isn’t everything and some things, including family, matter more than whatever political disagreements you might have at this moment in time.

Does that mean you should never talk politics over Thanksgiving? No, of course not. You can talk politics or football or anything else. What matters is how you talk about it. If you start from the idea that members of your own family are the enemy (on the right or left), it’s not going to go well. If you can show a little perspective and a little bit of mutual respect, it’ll be fine.