Tips for talking politics on Thanksgiving
My tip?
Don’t.
Unless everyone is on the same page politically and you all know it. Even then, it’s best to avoid it. Why bother? This is Thanksgiving. There are so many other things to talk about. Art, science, philosophy, love, your gall bladder operation.
It doesn’t change any minds
I must be lucky, I can’t think of a single Thanksgiving dinner I’ve been to where politics were discussed.
Luckily, politics is not a major topic at my family gatherings. My family is very conservative, except for the one family member who isn’t (and already gets bullied, to the point that I intervene, since that’s not right no matter who is doing the bullying). Mr. G’s family casually tends lefty, of the “You’re so smart, I didn’t realize you were a conservative!” ilk; politics is not a typical conversation topic for them.
American conservative. Family gatherings are for socialization, appreciation, not politics, or politically congruent activism.
Say, that gall bladder might indeed be a fun topic to bring up! I probably wouldn’t have thought of it otherwise. Thanks, Neo! 🙂 Maybe I can even find that CD I’ve got lying around somewhere with the ultrasound scans to show my folks….
Will be at visiting my niece who has taken over the thanksgiving festivities with her husband. Will be fun since the two families know each other well and we have a varied interest group as we will be talking Hockey and Football and the ladies will be discussing families and other topics. Last year I think they ended up with 25 people total, but her grandmother is coming up this year so will probably be closer to 30 this year.
O, please, not your gall bladder. The biggest single detriment of getting older is that people perpetually want to talk about their health. (Admittedly, there was an earlier period where every woman wanted to talk about her labor, but that was actually better.)
I actually did have my gall bladder removed around TG about 10 years ago.
I don’t want to talk about it.
Previous generations had it rougher. They had to discuss politics because the only thing on was some meaningless Detroit Lions game.
Nowadays, Detroit Lions’ games are still meaningless but you got two other games to pick from. So you don’t have to talk to nobody about nothing for most of the day.
Be grateful.