A Real Thanksgiving

Michael Ramirez November 25, 2021

See more Ramirez toons HERE .

“I’m here to tell you Thanksgiving is terrible, and if you at least spend the time trying to deprogram your niece, you won’t be bored or depressed (though you might be enraged that Fox News or Infowars has convinced her Trump can “save America” from Joe Biden’s radical agenda of giving people hearing aids and free pre-K).

“Especially when it comes to vaccines,” she continues. “You could literally save your creepy uncle’s life”

She concludes with a dogwhistle suggestion to report their family members to the authorities for their political beliefs.

“Maybe it won’t work. Maybe you’ll leave Thanksgiving dinner as divided as you were when you sat down at the table five hours and 4,000 calories ago. Or maybe you’ll plant the seed, sow just a little doubt about whatever Tucker Carlson is saying now. Maybe you’ll even change a heart or a mind. Maybe you’ll bring the temperature down just a tiny bit. Or maybe you’ll need to report a relative to the FBI ,”

thenewstalkers

I just tell my dad I don’t want to hear any of his political bullshit and if that’s what he wants to talk about then take it somewhere else. 

Does he say the same to you about yours?  Or do both of you not talk politics at the table? 

Nope, after I more or less told him to shut the fuck up about politics with me he hasn’t tried to bring it up much since and I don’t go into it at all with him. I am determined not to let your idol ruin my relationship with my father.

…Tom believes that Thanksgiving is a time for harmony and niceties and gratitude. I love Tom, but he’s completely wrong.

Spending a holiday sitting around, pretending your crazy relatives aren’t crazy, is one of America’s time-honored traditions. In normal times, you could be the dog in the house-fire meme declaring, “This is fine” while taking a sip of doggy coffee, but we are not in normal times.

Last Thanksgiving, many of us didn’t see our families, because the pandemic was raging. Now, 773,000 dead Americans later, we have vaccines and boosters. And while the unvaccinated are still dying at a pretty rapid clip , we are finally able to more safely get together with our parents and grandparents and weird cousins and uncles.

This is your chance to deprogram them. Facebook knows its algorithm radicalizes users . This is your chance to tell your aunt that maybe the news she gets from it isn’t all that reliable. And that maybe the MAGA news network is not giving her unbiased news, either.

Especially when it comes to vaccines, family members can actually win each other’s hearts and minds. A professor who has studied coronavirus-vaccine promotion at North Carolina State University, Stacy Wood, told The Washington Post that “the effort is worthwhile … A lot of people are convinced over time from small bits of information that trickle in.” According to a Time/Harris poll , 59 percent of people got vaccinated after a friend or family member did. You could literally save your creepy uncle’s life.

If you actually can lead by example when it comes to vaccines, what about the other stuff?

In May, The New York Times cited a poll in which “15 percent of Americans [said] they think that the levers of power are controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles.” I’m no statistician—in fact I’m barely able to add and subtract; I got a D in tenth-grade math—but to me that says there’s a decent chance someone at your Thanksgiving table will be QAnon-curious or believe the Big Lie . Should you let this person rant and rave about how there were voting “irregularities” even though there weren’t irregularities? If they’re keeping up with current events through Facebook and Fox News, they’re in such an information silo that they might never hear the truth of what really happened during the 2020 election. (For the record: Nothing happened; it was a completely normal election where Joe Biden won by almost the same margin that Donald Trump won in 2016.)

You might be the only person your uncle talks to all year who could explain to him that the Cyber Ninjas themselves found zero evidence of voter fraud . You might be the only person in the world who can sit down with your anti-vax cousin and explain to her that the vaccine won’t make her infertile and that Alex Berenson is a fraud .

You may also be the one person who unreservedly loves Thanksgiving, but let’s be honest, for most of us a five-hour meal with relatives you see once a year is no one’s idea of a great time. Have you ever thought, This is the gauzy Hallmark-movie fantasy I’ve always longed for?

I’ve done 43 Thanksgivings, and the best one was probably in 1997, when I was 19 and getting sober at Hazelden in Center City, Minnesota. I’m here to tell you Thanksgiving is terrible, and if you at least spend the time trying to deprogram your niece, you won’t be bored or depressed (though you might be enraged that Fox News or Infowars has convinced her Trump can “save America” from Joe Biden’s radical agenda of giving people hearing aids and free pre-K ).

Maybe it won’t work. Maybe you’ll leave Thanksgiving dinner as divided as you were when you sat down at the table five hours and 4,000 calories ago. Or maybe you’ll plant the seed, sow just a little doubt about whatever Tucker Carlson is saying now. Maybe you’ll even change a heart or a mind. Maybe you’ll bring the temperature down just a tiny bit. Or maybe you’ll need to report a relative to the FBI!…

Read more: newsletters.theatlantic

Did you successfully deprogram your dad yesterday?  Inquiring minds want to know!  

Fuck no. Didn’t even try nor am I going to. He is set in his idiot beliefs, and I have told him on multiple occasions he is an idiot, and finally I just told him not to bring any of that shit up with me. Period. And if he really wants to and keeps trying then he can just no longer speak to his eldest son.

That was over a year ago and we haven’t really talked politics much since. Our relationship has been much better since we cut that horseshit out.

So, are your siblings more like you or like him?  

I have survived the attempt and am as pro Trump and an America first populist nationalist as ever!  

And as insufferable a douche as ever as well.

And proudly so!

I gave thanks that my family isn’t crazy and doesn’t spend a holiday arguing about politics.   Whether Nagy should have fired at halftime, after the game or this morning  seemed to generate the most heated debate.

The Bears beat the worst team in the league on a last second field goal. Whoop de doo. 

Lol, such a bad game. But what do expect when the NFL tosses out a turd (the lions) before the season even starts? It’s either going to be hilarious because the lions whoever else and are so bad, or boring because the lions fucking suck and it’s a low scoring suck fest or an absolute ass kicking.

The Raiders vs Cowboys was a huge game and an exciting one too.  

It's a modern day "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner" where the questions of the day determine whether your relatives are Neanderthals or not. The divide is split over whether black lives matter or not. Did Biden win the election or not. Did Trump incite the January 6th attack on the capital or not. Should everyone who can get the vaccine or not. Is Qanon full of bullshit or not.

If your relatives answered "no" to any of those questions then they've defined themselves as ignorant conservative Neanderthals completely out of touch with reality. As to whether that calls for turning them in to the FBI, that depends on whether they're trying to get the rest of your family to believe in lizard people, believe Democrats eat babies or believe that the "tree of liberty" needs watering as they fondle their AR-15 with an itchy trigger finger.

Interesting sweeping generalizations and stereotypes you have there about the loyal opposition 

Interesting sweeping generalizations

If you're spouting demonstrably false information and acting as if it's somehow true without a lick of evidence, then you're a fucking psycho, the generalization fits. And it's not "sweeping" unless there are millions of poorly educated morons who are spouting demonstrably false information... oh, wait, I guess that could describe quite a lot of right wing conservative Americans. Perhaps they should stop spreading such bogus bullshit, then no one would lump them in with the fucking psychos.

I am speaking the truth!  Unlike Biden voters I am completely sane.  There are millions of supporters and enablers making excuses for and rationalizing let’s go Brandon’s stupidity and lack of cognitive function.  We lump left wing progressives with the paychos but we are the ones who are right when we do it.  

I am speaking the truth!

A belief without any empirical evidence cannot be defined as "truth".

I am completely sane.

Which is exactly what just about every delusional dumb shit in the asylum proclaims daily.

We lump left wing progressives with the paychos but we are the ones who are right when we do it.

Sure, sure, you tell yourself whatever you need to so you can sleep through the night, paychos.

A belief without any empirical evidence cannot be defined as "truth".

thus there is nothing that the secular progressive believes in that can in any way be defined as truth.  

Which is exactly what just about every delusional dumb ⋅ in the asylum proclaims daily. 

the rantings of the Biden voters are well described above.

Sure, sure, you tell yourself whatever you need to so you can sleep through the night, paychos.

unlike the psycho left, we America first populist nationalist conservatives have no difficulty with our conscience or with sleeping well at night.