It has been a long, bruising, and terrible election season, and with Thanksgiving and the winter holidays right behind it, there is a temptation to set it all aside and find ways to reach commonalities with our families and loved ones. There will be guides to avoid conflict, minimize difficult discussions, and embrace each other across political divides and cranberry sauce.
This is not one of them.
I’m not going to tell you to make nice with people whose politics are diametrically opposed to yours. I’m not going to ask you to do the work of elevating their humanity above your own by offering grace that they will never reciprocate. Politics isn’t a genre that we can take or leave, like enjoying romcoms but hating horror movies (or vice versa). Politics is about our worldview, how we think life should operate, what behaviors we should reward and which we should reject. Politics determines who gets safe passage through the world and who will face fear and danger. Politics might manifest in terms of tax cuts and Congressional votes, but it is and always will be about resources and dignity.
It is frankly absurd to pretend that we can set that aside after a campaign that so clearly marked some of us for oppression and left the rest gloating over the pain they will inflict. Trump supporters have voted for owning the libs, stewing in our misery, and treating us as inferiors — the very same ingredients for conflict that they say they want us to overlook. They have asked for our suffering; we do not owe them our forgiveness.
Since we have entered into the transition between the Biden and Trump Administrations, I have been stuck on a quote from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The whole thing is a scathing assessment of the US political classes—from the white allies who suggest caution and retreat to the virulently racist political actors of the South to the bystanders of all backgrounds who would rather avoid conflict than embrace fairness. It was written as he served a sentence for marching without a permit to protest segregation and unfair hiring practices. He wrote:
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councillor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says, “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time; and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season.”
This Thanksgiving, we all deserve a positive peace. We deserve to break bread with families made from love and acceptance, not the silenced discord of fundamental disagreement. It does not matter who we are born to, who we grew up with, who shares our genetics. Families are not about who claims us, but who we claim in return. This holiday, don’t ditch the politics for a meal; have a meal that reflects your politics. We will have justice at our tables, or we will eat off of our laps with people that cherish us as the equals we are.
Don’t accept anything less.
