This Thanksgiving May Have Less Politics

At last.

Last Thanksgiving, I joked, at our annual family gathering, that the first person to bring up politics — in any capacity — had to eat outside. Though I’m pretty sure the fact that mentioned it at all means that I probably should have been eating outside myself.

Talking politics at Thanksgiving is always perilous, whether it’s the drunk racist uncle, the too-online cousin who’s constantly looking for something to be upset about or just the overall sense that the room’s going to explode the minute someone says the word “Trump.” But the last few years have provided a run of politically fraught Thanksgivings that are unprecedented.

2021. This is the first real “post-Covid” Thanksgiving, which is to say, it’s the first post-vaccine Thanksgiving, the one when people actually felt comfortable gathering. (Though ironically we all ended up getting Omicron afterwards.) This was also the “Let’s Go Brandon” Thanksgiving. (Remember that Jared Schmeck idiot?) There were lots of built-up arguments to have after a year plus indoors.

2020. Perhaps the most truly insane Thanksgivings ever, with the election just over, the Georgia runoffs kicking off and the former President screaming about how the election was stolen from him. This Thanksgiving was a couple of weeks after the Four Seasons Total…