Thanksgiving and the holiday season can have as many fireworks as the Fourth of July.
These fireworks are the figurative kind. The kind that go off right after the turkey is cut, right when a family is going around the table sharing what they’re thankful for. Everything is going smoothly until someone says they’re thankful for “Make America Great Again” hats and someone else counters this by expressing gratitude for reusable straws.
For many people, those fireworks can be interesting to watch.
So what can be done to survive heated debates around the dinner table this Thanksgiving? Colorado Mesa University (CMU) students weigh in on the matter.
“This Thanksgiving my cousin just came out to be gay and my family is very conservative and […] we don’t know whats going to happen […] so I think that my grandma is going to flip her lid, and my parents are not approving of my cousin,” student Samantha Stewart said.
Stewart’s plan to avoid the looming conflict?
“I think I’m going to have to be the middleman […] because my grandparents are super conservative and I’m in the middle and my cousins are very liberal,” Stewart said.
For some families, political beliefs are uniform across the table; meaning that even if political subject matter does surface, it won’t be quite as touchy a topic.
“We don’t talk about liberals or Democrats at the dinner table […] because we’re conservative Republicans and we don’t agree with a lot of the things [Democrats] have to say,” student Bella DeVore said.
Similarly, student Isa Girardi had the same situation as DeVore, but the ideologies are the opposite.
“My whole family is very liberal because we come from a very liberal area [Seattle, Washington]. So usually it’s just us complaining to each other about how messed up our country is and how much we hate Donald Trump because nobody in my family likes him at all,” Girardi said.
But as for those students who don’t have families with the same beliefs, Thanksgiving can be tense, to say the least.
“If [politics] gets brought up at dinner with two opposing views, agree to disagree because it’s normal for families to have political disagreements. If more political topics are brought up, try changing the subject if possible, or if you must, do your research if you are willing to debate,” freshman Jackson Moore said.
Moore brings up a point — perhaps its best to avoid sensitive subject matter. But if it continues to come up, one can only dance around the topic so long.
“My advice is just to keep your head down, it’s not worth the argument,” said student Brett Thornton.
For the most part, the most common piece of advice from students in regards to surviving divisive political conversation on Thanksgiving was to ignore it altogether.
“I just tell people hey, we only get to spend a limited amount of time together right now, the last thing I want to do is talk about politics or argue about it because it usually leads to a fight,” said student Judy Morrow.
While talking about politics can be insightful, divisive conversation can be uncomfortable – especially during the holidays. There is a time and place for everything, and perhaps Thanksgiving isn’t the time nor place for bickering.
“My family talks politics often and most of us are either Republicans or Democrats so [our] ideologies don’t really clash but the important thing to keep in mind when discussing politics is to remember that you have to respect other people’s points of view, their life experiences and outlook helped form their political views. You can’t be upset that people were raised different than you and therefore have different views,” freshman Ryan Peck said.
Maybe this holiday season, politics doesn’t have to be taboo or a source of conflict. Instead, perhaps try to understand where everyone is coming from. Who knows? There could be productive conversation to go around.
Or perhaps avoid the topic altogether, and try to enjoy Thanksgiving to the fullest.
Nonetheless, good luck to CMU students this holiday season. And good luck, America.
