I Won’t Be Avoiding Politics This Thanksgiving

“President Donald Trump remains with strong approval at 50%…”

That’s what he posted on Trash Social tonight. It’s always interesting how he writes in the third person, like he’s narrating a myth about himself. It almost reads like a question in disguise, as if he’s fishing for reassurance from people who’ll tell him what he wants to hear. But even if it were true, even if his approval rating really were that high (and it’s not), 50 percent isn’t something to brag about. It’s a stalemate. A nation split clean down the middle. Half the country still refusing to see what’s right in front of them, and the other half deeply worried about what happens if this man stays in power. And yet this number, flimsy and inflated as it is, is being pushed as proof that everything is fine. That’s what propaganda does.

And that’s why I won’t be staying quiet this Thanksgiving.

I grew up like most of us, with construction paper turkeys, bulletin boards covered in pilgrim hats, and “what I’m thankful for” lists. A classroom play where some of us wore feathers, some wore bonnets, and nobody talked about what really happened. We were taught that Thanksgiving was a sweet story about friendship and gratitude, not a story about stolen land, broken treaties, and a history rewritten to protect the comfort of those who benefited from it. Revisionist history has always served power. It made the holiday easier to swallow the same way the Lost Cause myth after the Civil War tried to reframe the Confederacy as something noble, casting traitors as honorable men fighting for states’ rights instead of what they were actually fighting for: the right to enslave human beings. That version of history was never about truth, it was about comfort. And today, that same kind of revisionism is happening all over again. Trump isn’t trying to govern. He’s trying to reframe reality, flatten the facts, and convince people that if he says it, it must be true.

And that’s not some distant worry. It’s showing up in real time, in real headlines, the kind of headlines we’ll be carrying into living rooms and around dinner tables this week. So let’s look at the news today, and let’s talk about how we navigate these conversations, especially when we’re sitting down with family and friends who might still be holding on to fragments of MAGA, or struggling to see what’s really happening.

For starters, Trump’s name appears more than 1,500 times in the Epstein files released so far. That’s not speculation. It’s documented. The DOJ has already warned him privately that more references to him are likely to surface. And yet when women journalists ask him basic questions about Epstein, his response isn’t clarity, it’s cruelty.

When Catherine Lucey from Bloomberg pressed him on Air Force One about the files, he didn’t answer. He sneered, “Quiet. Quiet, piggy.” The White House stood by it. When Mary Bruce of ABC brought up his business ties and Epstein in the Oval Office, he called her “a terrible person” and threatened ABC’s broadcast license. And just this week, after a New York Times piece mentioned that he looked tired, he lashed out at reporter Katie Rogers, calling her “ugly, both inside and out.” He said nothing about her male co-author. Only her.

So if someone at your table says, “If he had something to hide, we’d know by now,” you can ask a simple question: Why would an innocent man react like that? Why does every woman who presses him for answers get insulted, demeaned, and personally attacked?

And then there’s the economy, the conversation most people try to keep “safe.”

Nearly 85,000 homes were pulled off the market this fall, the largest jump in delistings since at least 2015. About 70 percent of the homes that stayed listed had already been sitting for more than 60 days. Nationally, prices are barely growing, and in some markets they have fallen by double digits. Builders are cutting prices and offering incentives. Sellers are giving up. Families are trapped between high mortgage rates and falling values. If they sell, they lose money. If they stay, they’re stuck. The panic is quiet, but it’s real, and it’s happening.

And instead of offering help, Trump is threatening the one bit of stability many families still have. When asked if he would extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies, the ones keeping millions of Americans insured, he said, “I’d rather not.” These subsidies currently help keep premiums affordable for eligible individuals. Without them, monthly costs could skyrocket into the hundreds or even thousands. And just to be clear, the Affordable Care Act is what most people still call Obamacare. When Trump says he’d rather not renew those subsidies, he’s saying he would rather millions of people lose access to care. No solution. Just cruelty and the same obsession he’s always had: undo anything connected to Obama, no matter who it hurts.

And then came the shooting in Washington, D.C.

Two West Virginia National Guardsmen were shot while patrolling near Farragut Square. The man who shot them, an Afghan national who arrived in 2021 under a Special Immigrant Visa, was arrested. The FBI is investigating. But before the facts were even out, Trump used the moment to call him an “animal” and sent in 500 more National Guard troops, bringing the total presence in D.C. to around 2,500.

Here’s what MAGA media won’t say: If Trump hadn’t turned the city into a stage for his political theater, those two members of the National Guard wouldn’t have been standing on that corner. That doesn’t absolve the shooter. But it does place responsibility on the man who filled the streets with troops to make himself feel in control, and put real people in harm’s way just to project strength.

And we know where all of this is going. Authoritarian regimes always use moments like this to reshape the narrative, to turn violence into propaganda, victims into symbols, and fear into fuel. This could be yet another one of those moments, where Trump sees an opportunity to tighten his grip, expand his authority, and rewrite the story so he’s not the cause of chaos, but the one who must control it.

It’s the same playbook he reached for after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Trump and the Heritage Foundation didn’t mourn him as a complex human being with a family, flaws, and grief left behind. They turned him into a martyr. A message. A tool. Just like Hitler and Goebbels did with Horst Wessel, a Nazi street thug killed in a personal dispute, then repackaged as a national myth. They gave him a parade, a song, and a gravestone that people were told to treat like a shrine. The same tactic appeared in Franco’s Spain, in Mussolini’s Italy, and it always begins the same way. With a man in power, desperate to hold onto it, spinning blood into legend.

And while all this is happening, ICE continues to operate one of the most brutal deportation machines in modern history, with upwards of 1,700 removal flights since Trump’s second term., Solitary confinement used against thousands, and mass transfers that human rights organizations say are designed to break people mentally. We’ve seen this before, too. The U.S. rounded up Japanese Americans during World War II. It targeted civil rights leaders under the banner of law and order. Every time, the government claimed it was for the good of the country. And every time, history judged those choices with shame.

Now, Trump wants to go further. He wants unrest. He wants chaos. He wants the excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act, a law from 1807 that allows the president to deploy the military on U.S. soil if he declares there’s rebellion. It was meant to be used in true emergencies, not as a tool of political domination. But Trump has already talked openly about using it like it’s his own personal security force. He wants panic so he can say, “I had no choice.” And then claim even more power. Every time there is violence of any kind, even when it comes from Trump’s own side, which it often does, it’s another step closer to him unleashing his dream of ruling through force.

You may hear some of this at your table tomorrow. You may hear none of it. But if it does come up, or if you bring it up, know this: you don’t have to win the argument. You don’t have to convert anyone. You just have to hold the line. Speak the truth. Ask the hard question. And when someone says, “Why talk about this on Thanksgiving?” you can say, “Because this is the world we’re living in. Because silence is how we got here.”

Because this isn’t just politics. This is history. And as heavy as these days can feel, I hope you’re still able to find moments of joy, places of peace with friends and family who are on the right side of history, who still believe in truth, in dignity, and in fighting for something better. America has never been perfect. It was built on stolen land and enslaved labor, and it has never fully reckoned with either. But what made it different, what made it worth believing in, was the idea that we could keep moving toward justice. That we could become something better, together.

We can’t give up on that promise now. Not when it’s needed most.

I’ll see you tomorrow,
Heather

P.S. If you’ve made it this far, chances are we see things the same way. You can help keep this work going by subscribing to my Substack; there’s a free option, or you can become a paid subscriber for just $5 a month. Paid subscriptions help me reach more people, cover more ground, and keep telling the truth about what’s happening to our country.