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How to Discuss Politics With Your Family This Thanksgiving
Sitting down to dinner on Thanksgiving is a wonderful American tradition. Liven up your tradition by using this as an opportunity to speak to your loved ones about the issues you care about. Our handy guide to dealing with touchy subjects should help you make this the best Thanksgiving ever!
- Start early. You can’t say you’ve been discussing politics all day if you don’t start as soon as you wake up. I also find that the perfect time to explain to your mother the importance of the dialectic to intersectionality is when she’s elbow-deep in a turkey carcass at 5:30 in morning.
- If someone says something like “can’t we skip all the political talk this year” tell them to shut up. If they say it again, throw your drink at them. You can’t solve all the world’s problems if you take time to be polite.
- The people you’re talking to may not be as well informed as you are. You should frequently remind them of this.
- Also, the people you’re talking to may not realize what a favor you are doing for them by taking your own valuable time to explain the correct political opinions to them. You should point this out. Often.
- Make sure to download and print out Saul Alinsky’s recipe for rosemary and sage dressing. It’s delicious.
- Remind folks that passing the potatoes is just socialism writ small.
- Make sure to loudly explain how market failures lead to lumps in the gravy.
- American as apple pie? Think again. Colonialists introduced the apple to the New World, along with slavery and disease. This basically makes your aunt Hitler.
- If you are ever reminded that you are surrounded by folks that raised you, fed you, clothed you, sheltered you, financed you, etc., and that maybe you should simply appreciate their company or–gasp–cut them some slack on a holiday, just remind them that racism, bigotry, and intolerance never take a day off, so neither can you. So pass the stuffing, Uncle Ted, you bigot, and gird your loins for a heavy dose of third-wave feminist theory.
- Whatever you do, do not volunteer to help out at a soup kitchen. That’s no way to help people! It’s much better to drink too much wine and point out all your family’s horrible horrible flaws and opinions than to waste time doing something like that.
I L’edOL. If I had to pick just one favorite, it would be 2 through 8.
Perfection…(This needs a “humor” tag, just in case.)…Oh, and, happy Thanksgiving! :-D
All good advice, except for the one about throwing away a perfectly good drink. Good drinks might be in short supply. You should recommend something else to be thrown instead.
Nothing says “Thanksgiving” like cnn on every television turned up to 11.
Simply wonderful. (You must have been a fly on the wall at some of our family gatherings.) Happy Thanksgiving.
By the way, the only reason why there are no turkeys on tables in Venezuela this Thanksgiving is because turkeys don’t migrate. Pity the Robins though.
funny stuff. Almost snorted a ham sandwich thru my nose. thanks for that.
I don’t remember the annual “Thankgiving deliveries of left-wing talking points” prior to the Obama presidency. Can we blame him for the politicization of everything?
Just don’t use the word “divisive.”
“Derisive!”
If you actually use Thanksgiving as a time for delivering political talking points to your relatives, you are a bad person. This holiday season, refuse to participate in The Politicization of Everything™.
So, you hunt up a new batch of guests for Thanksgiving each year?
John, your post was so good I read it to my wife Marie. She didn’t think it was all that great.
That’s much nicer than she says about my posts, so her comment about your post is almost a compliment.
I really should have divorced her decades ago, but she makes a mean soup and has a bounteous bod.
He seemed perfectly serious to me…
@kozak, you’ve given the Church-Lady the vapors – or, maybe, a flashback – with this hideous bit of media…I forgive you, but, Oh. My. Goshness.
I have a son like that but he is also a very, very good rugby player. I guess it kind-of evens out in the end.
In the car driving home from the game:
Me: Where did you get that ear?
Son: Uhhhh. Found it.
I respect a man with priorities.
I hate to say this, but, my family and I *agree* re: politics and enjoy one another’s cooking and company – and a really bad funny movie of choice – after dinner. :-)
I’d change it to “my make-believe boyfriend can get a free sex change” but besides that it’s perfect.
11. Explain why Mother Teresa (AKA: Saint Teresa of Calcutta) was wrong and Mr. Obama was right about the Missionaries of Charity needing free birth control for their nuns.
So far, this one’s my favorite of them all. :-)
All the turkeys in Venezuela are in Caracas running the economy, Comrade.
Thought those were vultures?
Turkey buzzards, maybe.
They aren’t due back in Hinckley, Ohio until March 15 or thereabouts.
I don’t think the Andean condors range that far.
Ah, Hinckley, OH…Pancake breakfast to welcome the buzzards home…Tradition!
Greg Gutfeld has some excellent advice on this topic.