River News: Our View

Several years ago, we wrote a Thanksgiving column about giving thanks to political opponents, primarily because giving thanks to political opponents means that there are opponents to give thanks to.

We wrote: “It means we live in a democracy, which is defined by point and counterpoint, by thesis and antithesis, by majoritarian thought and the protection of dissident opinion. It means we live in a place where we are allowed to live at all, that is to say, to live freely.”

We reiterate that thought this week in the wake of a decisive national election that has sent so many into celebration, but which has sent many others into panic because they somehow believe they will be curated, canceled, oppressed, or even imprisoned.

To the former camp, there is indeed much to celebrate and much to give thanks for. As actress and film director Justine Bateman said after the election, it feels like we can breathe again after four years of walking on eggshells.

The heaviness on our chests and throats actually goes back much further, to the beginning of Barack Obama’s first term in office. That’s when the captains of woke began to commandeer the levers of power in this nation and strive not only to tell us what to think but to set limits on what we could say and write, regardless of what we thought.

Write the wrong thing, and there could have been a hate crime trial in your future, or one for insurrection.

The gag order has been officially lifted. The rag of censorship and self-censorship has been yanked from our mouths. Our incoming president has issued a proclamation once again reaffirming free speech as the very first right of all Americans, regardless of what they think.

That proclamation might not qualify Trump for Mt. Rushmore, as Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., suggested, but it’s close.

The surging sense of relief and liberation is being expressed joyously in many different ways throughout the land, perhaps none so happily as the Trump dance that has gone viral in sports stadiums and in other public venues. There is a palpable sense that, if happy days are not quite yet here again, they are right around the corner.

As to the latter group, those progressives fearing retribution, we hasten to say: Fear not. Don’t worry, be happy!

To be sure, we would advise our friends on the left to look in the mirror when they fear that the state is coming for them, for their fear is likely a good case of projection.

For that’s exactly what their side has done and, for the last four years, done so intensely. It is the Biden administration that weaponized the Department of Justice, not merely to go after and try to imprison our president but to try and turn domestic political opponents into domestic terrorists, including parents concerned about the education of their children.

It is the progressives who divided us into essential and nonessential people, who told us we couldn’t work unless we took government drugs, who said we could buy liquor but not go to church, who closed our schools and told parents they had no say in their children’s lives, including any decision to self-mutilate.

If you disagreed, they called you a child abuser. Talk about projection.

Yes, it has been an absolutely horrible time in this reactionary America marching toward totalitarianism, but a New America — an America First — is on its way, and its calling card is liberty, not oppression.

Its signature is prosperity, not retribution; equality of opportunity, not of outcome, and it is attracting millions across the population spectrum, encompassing both genders and all races. 

Its mission is to elevate the working class, not bow to the elite government and warmongering classes. It is a movement that values noncompliance and dissent, and has no use for conformity for conformity’s sake, or to preserve the power of privilege.

It is a movement that stands for working men and women, not big business.

Such a movement has no time for petty payback; it’s too busy dancing. And so not only will America’s progressive movement not be imprisoned, it too will be freer than it has ever been to pursue its “resistance,” if that is what it chooses to do.

As we pointed out three years ago, we live in an age in which the country is fractured. It still is. But we still vote, and the outcomes of elections still surprise us. No doubt progressives were surprised on this election day.

That ability of an election to surprise is reason enough for everybody to give thanks. After the massive cheating — to be sure, much of it legal cheating — that occurred during 2020, these elections were for the most part clean and unchallenged, though, for reasons that escape us, they are still counting ballots in California.

Oh wait, it’s California, no explanations needed.

This year there was no electoral college controversy. The popular vote winner and the electoral college winner was the same. The presidential election was decided on election night, and what the election told us is that the people still govern. That by itself is a win-win for all.

All of which brings us to Thanksgiving and the family around the table. Despite a few voices telling progressives to boycott family members who voted for Trump — they do not yet realize that that is so yesterday — it’s suddenly OK to disagree in America again.

Yes, Justine, we no longer have to walk on eggshells.

Despite old nostrums about never bringing up politics or religion, political discussions and disagreements were, at least until the Obama years, a staple of family life and holiday traditions and talk around the water cooler. They were often passionate. They oftentimes resulted in people getting mad.

But, once the discussion was over, everybody got along. Politics was politics and left at said water cooler. At the end of the day, everyone could have a laugh and a beer down the street.

That America — where political opponents are not considered automatically evil, fascist, or racist for disagreeing with the government or the Democratic Party — that America is off life support and breathing on its own again.

It is an America perhaps best described as the America of Tip O’Neil, the iconic speaker of the House in the 1970s and 1980s. It is said that O’Neil, a lifelong Democrat and die-hard New Dealer, never met a political friend or enemy he didn’t like. O’Neil was fond of socializing after work with those political enemies. He especially clashed, often fiercely, with President Ronald Reagan.

After 6 p.m., though, he considered Reagan his friend: “Before 6 p.m., it’s all politics,” O’Neil quipped.

That’s the America that’s on its way back. That’s the America that makes us so special — we’re all able to be friends and fellow patriots around the national dinner table even though we may disagree vociferously at times.

That disagreement is the heart and soul of our nation, for it allows for progress — true progressivism. What emerges from the clash of ideas is better ideas.

What emerges from forced consensus is mediocrity and inertia.

For many this Thanksgiving will also be a time to put away the politics altogether, to stick it in the freezer for later consumption, and that’s OK, too. Many Americans simply want a rest from it all: After a good meal, the dessert sometimes has to wait.

Thankfully, the new America not only allows for open disagreement, it does not demand we climb on any bandwagon or soapbox. Americans no longer have to pretend, when asked, that they really support this political flavor or that.

We don’t have to tell the emperors how pretty their new clothes are. 

The bottom line is — and perhaps this is most important — it’s OK to disagree with your family and still eat turkey with them. It’s OK to embrace that cousin or sibling that hasn’t spoken to you since 2016. Trust us, he or she will be by soon enough — this new feeling of liberation is surely contagious.

It’s still OK in the public square for progressives to sing protest songs for solidarity — as they do in Madison — but now it’s also OK to break into the Trump dance on aisle three of your favorite grocery while buying the stuffing and the cranberries.

The election has made America OK to be free again, and that’s saying something indeed. We can just see Tip O’Neil smiling down. He would be toasting us all and happy we can all be friends again.

After all, Tip would say, it’s after 6 p.m. somewhere. 

Happy Thanksgiving weekend to everyone!