How to Not Argue at the Dinner Table
17th July 2022
Family dinners, like almost every area of American life, have become a subject of fierce politicization recently. In the years following Trump’s election in 2016, readers of elite progressive outlets were treated to a long parade of thinkpieces urging Americans, in the words of a 2019 Atlantic essay from Ibram X. Kendi, “to liberate our relatives from their abusive relationship with Trump’s alternative reality.” “This Thanksgiving, It’s Time to Take on Your Conservative Relatives,” declared a headline in the Nation. Molly Jong-Fast called on readers to “Deprogram your relatives this Thanksgiving.” A 2017 GQ article was perhaps bluntest of all: “It’s Your Civic Duty to Ruin Thanksgiving by Bringing Up Trump.” (“This Turkey Day, consider making life HELL for a few of your relatives.”)
Calls to reduce family members to partisan opponents — “maybe you’ll need to report a relative to the FBI!” Jong-Fast concluded gleefully — were a routine feature of our political discourse throughout the Trump era. But the pandemic undeniably exacerbated the family-dinner question. In December 2021, Anthony Fauci infamously suggested that Americans bar unvaccinated relatives from Christmas gatherings. Unvaccinated Thanksgiving guests “have prioritized their own comfort over yours and your other guests’, in a way that is potentially hazardous,” Esquire’s advice columnist wrote the month before. “Box them up some leftovers, leave them on the stoop, and enjoy yourself.” At least one poll showed that two-thirds of vaccinated Americans banned their unvaccinated relatives from Thanksgiving festivities.