WIKIMEDIA COMMONS: ‘THE FIRST THANKSGIVING AT PLYMOUTH’ BY JENNIE A. BROWNSCOMBE, 1914 IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
By John Kass
November 16, 2022
America has been feasting for years on angry politics and toxic politics and tribal politics. Many of us are literally fed up. And Thanksgiving is coming.
The White House picks turkeys to get a pardon. Can’t Americans be pardoned from the exhausting drama of politics? And before one of you starts screaming at me in the voice of the Napoleonic duelist Harvey Keitel to say that I never loved the emperor, all I’m asking is this:
As we prepare for Thanksgiving can we just push back from the table a little bit and set aside the warclubs, tomahawks and swords?
Yes, I know this will upset the true political warriors, but can we keep the tomahawks out where they belong, at least for Thanksgiving, just outside the doors of the lodge? Unclean, somewhat grisly tomahawks should be nowhere near the Thanksgiving table. The mere sight will ruin the appetite and kill dinner conversation.
Even so, Trump’s pronouncements from Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night bear digesting. His words will take some time to sort out. I don’t feel like blasting out some quick hot take about Trump and the Republicans. I’ve already done that. And now I’d rather consider, and digest what the former president says and take my time.
It may be that the former president’s time has passed, that Republicans appreciate his combat with the establishment but now they’re looking to move on. At least, that’s the media theory, and you know how fairly Trump has been treated by the American media.
Or, it may just be that he’s been playing a turtle trick, hiding back in his shell to see who will come out against him and then grab them like that old snapping turtle in the muddy waters.
I’d like to clear my mind and ride a good horse in the snow. A fine high stepping sure-footed horse, a Friesian horse or maybe a good old American quarter horse. A horse in need of good work, the horse stopping on the trail, breath pluming, maybe an antlered buck with his head up nearby.
I’m tired of the drama, Mr. Trump. And I think many Americans are tired of it. The thing is, I can’t stand the left, I can’t stand the media that simpers about “speaking truth to power,” yet carries the left’s water day after day on behalf of Big Tech and Big Government and the Security State and mocks the American people. Watch the lefty cable news, read what we used to call “mainstream media,” and the sense you get from them about Republicans is that we’re the people the country is supposed to hate with reason.
But I’m also tired of the drama. Maybe someone who could read animal tracks in the snow can look over those political numbers from the mid-term election and see the evidence of Americans dragging their heels, tired of constant drama, dreading the next news cycle.
Leading up to the Trump event announcement, the other day on The Chicago Way podcast with Jeff Carlin, and again in my free column off the podcast, I wondered if Trump was about to “jump the shark” like Fonzie in the old “Happy Days” sit com, and wear a leather jacket like the Fonz while water skiing near Mar-a-Lago.
Or are his voters committed to the fight with him in the lead? They can’t just be whipped on in a frenzy, with screams of “lock her up,” not if you want a nation at the end of victory. They must be inspired to reach for the greater good, inspired to exhort each other to that good. That’s leadership. It leaves something behind worth building.
Politics is important, yes. But Thanksgiving is coming, and thanking God is also important, too. And the nation needs a break. The presidential election is two years away. President Joe Biden doesn’t know what time it is, he can’t remember the time if you wrote it on his forehead. He can’t stay up late, even in crisis. And now we’re told that missiles fell in Poland and now NATO wants to ratchet us up to World War III. As we stumble ever closer to nuclear war, the rest of us could use a few days of peace, even if Biden is mercifully isolated away from world leaders and media and left to chatter to himself in a room alone.
Read on here.
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