After the election, go to Thanksgiving dinner anyway

I was criticized for my “liberal tears” and for “showing my true colors” as a conservative stooge — all on the same day last week.

Criticism from both sides is an old, if imperfect, badge of honor for a certain stripe of journalist. No one group has a monopoly on the truth, and so a news organization is bound to run afoul of any political movement. A friend of mine used to joke: “I’m a journalist, I hope we can still be friends.” 

Maybe facing partisan slings from both sides is unusual. But politics has disrupted relationships for many of us. Tuesday’s presidential election features heated rhetoric, and as always comes a few short weeks before Thanksgiving — a holiday that most Americans celebrate, often with family, which can bring together people who vote differently. 

No matter what happens with this election, I’ll be with family on Thanksgiving, and I hope you can too. We Americans could use quality time together.

We’ve been drifting apart for decades. In 2008, Bill Bishop published his influential book “The Big Sort,” identifying that Americans increasingly lived in highly partisan counties. In 2011, tech critic Eli Pariser published “The Filter Bubble,” which argued online tools reinforced this partisanship — a trend that Facebook’s own data later supported, showing friends influence the political content you see even more than the algorithm. 

And we know fewer people with politics unlike our own. Since 2016, the share of Americans who say they don’t have any friends with different political views has grown — to 1 in 5, according to a YouGov survey from 2020. Fully a quarter of all Democrats reported having no friends with different politics.

This gave rise to the myth of the politically disrupted Thanksgiving — with cousins and uncles sparring over white supremacy and “the woke mind virus.” The pandemic broke traditions and fueled rivalry. Yikes. Most Americans have avoided throwdowns around the turkey, according to another YouGov poll from last year. But they’re real — 16% of Americans endured a political fight during the holiday. Meanwhile, half of Republicans and nearly as many Democrats only did Thanksgiving with people with similar politics.

No wonder rival governments see this as an American weakness. Just last week, US officials accused Russian “influence actors” of faking a video of supposed Haitian immigrants claiming to have voted multiple times for Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris in swing-state Georgia. Chinese and Iranian operatives also allegedly ran fake social media accounts this election to stoke partisan rivalry. Why lob bombs at the United States when you can pit its citizens against each other? 

Put it all together, and we’re causing ourselves pain — and weakening our country. Three quarters of Americans view our nation’s future as a “significant source of stress,” according to a new American Psychological Association survey. A third say politics have strained their relationships with family, and 30% report limiting their time spent with family members with different values. 

Let’s stop. The American economy is the envy of the world. More breakthrough research, unicorn companies and technical talent is here than anywhere else. Would-be immigrants around the world want to come to the United States over anywhere else, per Gallup. Our lead in all these measures is declining though. Repair old wounds.

To be clear, some relationships fractured irrevocably and for good reason. I am not telling anyone to go somewhere they feel is unsafe. But if you’ve had just a rough few years with an uncle or a cousin, with a childhood friend or an old work colleague, I hope you’ll consider refreshing it. 

Nothing seems certain about the election, and what will follow. I believe in the American project though. I’m confident the election will be fair, and I intend to look critically at whomever wins — and regardless of my personal read of the campaign, I will wish the next president can let the United States become a better version of itself. 

Make Thanksgiving plans — and avoid politics. If you can’t, ask not “why” someone believes something but instead, ask “how” did they come to believe it. Make it a personal story. Then go get seconds.

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