Yes, Virginia, Trump Ruined Thanksgiving
But at least the turkey isn't $90.
Thanksgiving 2021 was the first when families could gather around a table in person after the pandemic started. What should have been a collective national celebration during the first year of Joe Biden’s presidency was instead covered as a financial hardship.
Bloomberg wrote “Thanksgiving’s Price Tag Packs On The Pounds,” and The New York Times declared, “This Year’s Thanksgiving Feast Will Wallop the Wallet.” Fox News reported that the average turkey would cost as much as $90 but that was only true for turkeys pre-stuffed with caviar and cocaine.
Republicans ran with this narrative, of course. Sen. John Boozman blamed Biden and Democrats for ruining Thanksgiving. He wrote, “The economic pressures of the Biden era — labor shortages and higher costs for raw materials and transportation — are raising costs throughout the food supply chain.”
Thanksgiving 2024 was very different from 2020’s Zoom-only version where the very real threat existed that a loved one might die from covid. Last year, CNBC reported, “Thanksgiving meals are expected to be cheaper in 2024 as turkey prices drop.” USA Today asked, “How much does a Thanksgiving dinner cost in 2024? Thankfully, less than last year.” The economy under Biden was steadily on the mend, but it wasn’t healing quickly enough so Americans handed over control back to the guy who was in charge during what was objectively the worst Thanksgiving in modern history.
Not surprisingly, Thanksgiving this year isn’t going so well, despite the best spin cycles on right-wing media. Fox News shamelessly boasts that “gas and thanksgiving prices” are the lowest since the pandemic, which they seem to think started in 2021. However, that was true pretty much every year of the Biden administration and Fox News claimed it was the next, not-so-great depression.
Donald Trump and Republicans will certainly point out that Thanksgiving costs are still in decline, but that’s hardly Trump’s doing — given his tariff insanity. It’s just that not even Trump’s ego-driven stupidity is enough to completely derail the economic recovery Biden and Democrats set in motion after the pandemic.
We should note that decreased prices is not always a great thing, especially if the direct result of deflation, when supply dwarfs demand. A better economic indicator is when real wages matches and/or exceeds inflation, but good luck telling Americans this. Way too many people sounded like your cranky uncle who’d go on about how Big Macs were 45 cents (that’s $4.24 in today’s money) and a comic book once cost a nickel (that never happened).
Currently, wages are stagnant and the job market has cooled to the point of frost bite. Economist Diane Swonk recently stated that “the only groups that feel good about the economy now are making over $200,000 in the surveys and have large stock portfolios.” Ironically, Kamala Harris won voters who earn more than $100,000 a year, while Trump carried voters who made less than $100,000 and probably aren’t packing massive stock portfolios. (It’s a complete flip from the Barack Obama/Mitt Romney race, which is why so many liberals refuse to believe it’s true.)
This explains Trump’s tanking numbers on the economy and while the seeming gains he made among working-class Latino voters in particular have proven short-lived.
However, even for the Americans who are steadily employed and can financially afford Thanksgiving dinner, there’s the still the question of whether they can emotionally afford the experience. Despite the right-wing smears, Joe Biden never ruined Thanksgiving the way Donald Trump has. Long before the pandemic, Trump’s election in 2016 and his first nightmare presidential term made holiday dinners potential war zones for families who could once ignore politics.
Back in 2018, Hannah Gallagher at Scary Mommy wrote, “Every year, I dread it, my anxiety hitting a fever pitch before we even arrive. Seeing your family shouldn’t feel like an obligation.”
My extended family isn’t much better. I have a slew of aunts and uncles who provide negative commentary throughout our time together, occasionally sharing a racist joke they try to tell me isn’t racist. (It totally is.) I don’t talk to my extended family except on these holidays, and each year there seems to be a new level of discomfort brought in place of a green bean casserole.
Earlier this month, USA Today ran an op-ed from Texas resident Denise Swierc who expressed how much she dreaded confronting her “family’s hateful politics at Thanksgiving.”
I have a family member who does nothing but watch Fox News and has an opinion on everything, loves Donald Trump and seems to hate everyone else. He won’t listen to anyone but Fox (and himself), believing they are right and everyone else is wrong.
I was totally disturbed that another family member complained about Disney having a Black “Little Mermaid.” Another is homophobic. I mean, really? Everything is “woke.” I’m apparently a woke liberal (and proud of it).
I’ve been going to a therapist since Trump got elected. My biggest problem was how I reacted to hateful people, and how I don’t want to be around people with those beliefs. I’m feeling my intolerance toward them. And I’m feeling guilty over my own thoughts.
It’s a classic liberal conundrum that Denise Swierc feels guilty because her relatives are hateful and terrible. Her Fox-addicted MAGA family member who idolizes Trump is the one who needs Elephant Man-team-level therapy, not Swirec.
It’s true that this dysfunctional dynamic predates Trump. One of my favorite Saturday Night Live sketches is the Dysfunctional Family Christmas album, with its brutal version of “Carol of the Bells.” (Watch below.)
When Trump called a woman reporter “piggy,” his professional liar, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed this was simply an example of his “honestness” and “respect.” (No, really, she said this in front of people.)
“I think the president being frank and open and honest to your faces, rather than hiding behind your backs, is frankly a lot more respectful than what you saw in the last administration,” Leavitt said, “where you had a president who would lie to your face and then didn’t speak to you for week.”
It’s a lie that Biden lied to the press, but that’s consistent with Leavitt’s stream-of-consciousness style of deceit. It’s revealing that Leavitt presents Trump’s petty cruelty as “honesty.” The MAGA movement has encouraged Trump’s followers to remove their masks of civility and instead slather their faces with orange-stained contempt for others. Your unpleasant MAGA relatives won’t feel like they have to be “polite.” They can just be “honest” and “frank” like Trump. That won’t make for a pleasant gathering.
Centrist pundits have written countless op-eds advising against liberals “picking fights” with their MAGA relatives, as if they are the ones spoiling for battle. The burden is placed solely on liberals to absorb bruising body blows in the interests of family harmony. Previously, that might’ve just been annoying, but now it’s almost sadistic. If you’re a federal worker who’ve lost their job, if you have to sell a kidney next year to afford health care, if ICE thugs have roughed you up because you fit the profile, if you’re a trans person trying to exist, you must smile and play nice for the people responsible. There are far better ways to spend a day off from work.
As a vegetarian, when I was still attending the big family gathering, I learned that there is a thing in the UK where they put curry on mashed potatoes. Since the mashed potatoes was one of the steadfast "yes this is vegetarian" dishes, and I didn't want to have to deal with bringing something big/ complex to someone's kitchen, I brought a serving dish of curry to those last couple of Thanksgiving gatherings I attended. If you are vegetarian and like curry, try it over mashed potatoes!
I would say if, after nearly a decade of this you are still hosting and smiling for your out and proud MAGA relatives on holidays, that's a you problem and you need better boundaries. Of course, one thing I'm grateful for is that my family is either very anti-Trump or overall apolitical, so get togethers are pretty peaceful in that respect.