Opinion: How to Survive Thanksgiving With Your MAGA Uncle—Or Radical Left Niece
A storied American tradition is swiftly approaching. It involves turkey, tense conversations and maybe a smallpox blanket or two. OK, that last part only happened once, but honestly I wouldn’t rule it out for 2025.
Yes that’s right! It’s time for the annual How To Talk To Your Far-Right Relatives at Thanksgiving article. Or, if you are a Trump supporter, it’s the How To Talk To Your Liberal Cousin Who Probably Got Three Abortions While The Turkey Was In The Oven article.
You know the drill: Thanksgiving is the time when families gather together, eat their weight in pie, drink three glasses of chardonnay and then fight. So in this fraught political climate, here are some guidelines for protecting your peace—and staying in enough folks’ good graces that you get the last piece of pie:
1. Don’t go!
To state the obvious, if your family’s politics make you unsafe or make you feel unsafe, you don’t have to show up for dinner. Period. It’s easy for some people to say “put politics aside,” but when it’s your rights that are being taken away, there’s no barrier between what’s political and what’s personal.
So don’t go! Throw a Friendsgiving. Go dancing. Waste a whole night diagnosing yourself with a thyroid condition on Web MD. (Oh you’re tired? We’re ALL TIRED.) Sit in your apartment alone with a margarita and marvel that a movie named “Hot Frosty” exists. Build a snowman and see if you can make your own Hot Frosty. Make out with someone at a bar and then invent a sexual position called the Hot Frosty.
2. Stick to ‘safe’ topics.
Let’s say you are bravely forging into the Thanksgiving fray. Perhaps you rely on your family for financial support. Or still live in their house. Maybe you just love those dummies despite their politics. (You can reach across the table—to pass the stuffing—even if you’re not ready to reach across the aisle.) Now is the time to throw out some safe, non-controversial statements that everyone can agree on.
You can make it all the way through the pumpkin pie, I promise, by talking about how Pesto the Penguin is the cutest little buster, or how great it is that Gen-Z finally made comfy shoes cool. Here are some other options for non-controversial Thanksgiving fodder:
”Oh man, they are putting less cereal in the boxes now, amiright?” (Don’t mention Froot Loops specifically, though.)
”Whoa weather is strange now, but not necessarily in a climate change way. Just generally.”
“So weird how good the new Matlock is!”
3. Fight about something else.
Maybe you don’t have it in you to talk politics, but you’re still itching for an argument. Have one! Get all the anger out without actually having to learn that your weirdest in-law believes that fluoride is secretly reading his emails. Here are some very non-election-based phrases guaranteed to start a battle:
“Thanks, but I prefer tofurkey.”
”I hear ‘Baby It’s Cold Outside’ is problematic now.”
”I really love those new credit card machines that ask you for a tip even when you’re just buying groceries.”
4. Have a thoughtful discussion, no really.
And finally, maybe you’re actually up for some lively debate. Perhaps you’re a more evolved person than I, and can talk to someone who believes tariffs are going to make eggs cheaper and that’s worth mass deportations and bringing back whooping cough. Good for you. Here are a few tips if you’re hoping to change minds and not just sever ties.
First, try to listen more than you talk. (I have never once done this, but godspeed.) The election is over. You can’t go back in time to change your family’s votes, so maybe now is the time to listen and learn. Plant a few seeds that will hopefully lead to longer term mind-change. You absolutely don’t have to put up with racism, misogyny or the equivalent, but short of that, it might be worth hearing what they have to say?
Lastly, if you really want to do this, think of it as the beginning of a conversation rather than a one and done. It took a long time and likely a whole of lot of Infowars and Fox News (or MSNBC and TikTok) to solidify your loved ones’ not-so-lovely views, and you’re not going to change them over a sweet potato casserole. Give it some time.
And with all this in mind, remember also that Thanksgiving at its core is supposed to be a time of gratefulness and coziness. Your job this week is to cultivate that however you can—be it with your entire extended family around a giant table with a 20 pound turkey, or two friends on Facetime and a weed gummy.
But whatever you choose to do, end the day with a Hot Frosty. Whatever that means to you.
