TIPS FOR TALKING POLITICS AT THANKSGIVING: A Recipe for Success

Happy Thanksgiving! Yes folks, it’s that time again, when our tryptophan-laced turkey comes with all the familiar sides: candied yams; bread pudding; and a lovin’ spoonful of passive-aggressive sniping about politics with your family.

But that last dish doesn’t have to cause you indigestion: make a few small changes to the recipe and everyone can get through dinner without guzzling a pint of Pepto Bismol. I know most people would recommend NEVER talking about politics and religion in polite company, but that recommendation is for people who believe in things like “social graces” and “etiquette”… you know, the British. But if Britain was so great, the Pilgrims would never have left that cold, damp island in the North Atlantic to start a Thanksgiving tradition with their Native American friends in the first place. So, if you think of yourself as more American than British, consider some of these recommended changes to the recipe for political discourse at all family gatherings, but especially Thanksgiving.

1. PREP YOUR MIXING BOWL: Limit Discussions to One-on-One Conversations

There are several reasons for this recommendation. First, especially at Thanksgiving, you don’t want a debate on an explosive subject to ruin everyone else’s day if things go awry. Hence, political discussions at the dinner table, when innocent bystanders are present, should be avoided at all cost. Second, in conversations where multiple people are present, people tend to take sides, sometimes unevenly. Third, psychologists like myself know that people behave much differently in one-on-one conversations than in group discussions, with the former yielding more thoughtful, nuanced reflection and both parties validating each other’s views. Such discussions actually have the potential to get people to think about things in a new way. (For a longer explanation on this topic, check out my piece entitled Changing Hearts and Minds).

2. PRE-HEAT YOUR OVEN: Restrict Discussions to Those You Know Well

Debates about politics are never resolved in a single sitting, if at all. As events in the real world evolve, some positions will be proven right and others will be proven wrong. Therefore, having discussions with people that you know well – i.e., people you will see again – will ensure that you can rub it in their faces when your arguments are ultimately proven right. Ha. Of course, if your adversary is proven right, you’ll have an opportunity to humbly tell them you were wrong at next year’s Thanksgiving, with your tail planted firmly between your legs as you serve them a slice of homemade humble pie.

Here’s the thing though: when people know in advance of any debate that a tally of wins and losses will be kept in the back of each person’s mind and that each party will be held accountable for what they say at future functions, people are less likely to talk out of their proverbial asses and thus, keep themselves honest. Furthermore, if you want to up the ante, I recommend that if there are any disputes about facts (e.g., one factual dispute I had with a family member during a political debate was about which president bailed out the banks after the 2008 financial crisis), both parties agree that when a fact is eventually confirmed, the loser must donate $25 to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

3. TEMPER YOUR CUSTARD: Avoid Getting Personal

In social psychology there is a phenomenon called the fundamental attribution error (FAE), a bias that leads us to believe that our own moral mistakes are caused by external factors beyond our control, but the moral mistakes of others are caused by something fundamentally flawed within them. With respect to politics, we are much more likely to see the misdeeds of those on the other “team” as a function of their political ideology, while we see the misdeeds of those on our “team” as a function of extenuating circumstances.

Given that we are all subject to the FAE, debates about politics with friends and family increase the likelihood of each party using privileged personal information as a weapon to de-legitimize the other person’s political stance. For instance, when Uncle Bob says to his niece Jennifer, “Of course you believe in Socialism, you’ve been mooching off your parents since graduating college a decade ago because you’re too lazy to find a job!” it’s an example of how the FAE can lead to political debates getting personal. Similarly, when Jennifer tells Uncle Bob “It’s no wonder you support Trump’s border wall, you’ve hated Mexicans ever since Aunt Barbara left you for that tour guide in Cancun, who doesn’t need to overcompensate for anything by driving a Hummer!” This too is an example of how the FAE can lead political debates way out of bounds, creating a situation in which the dessert table gets overthrown after dinner. In my book, gouging each other’s eyes out with plastic forks is preferable to doing anything that might threaten dessert, so please heed my warning: Don’t get personal!

4. COOK EVENLY ON MEDIUM HEAT: Be Fair and Committed to Balance

Everyone hates hypocrisy. However, the only people I know who don’t engage in hypocrisy are those who don’t need to breathe. Translation: every living person engages in hypocrisy because we are rarely aware of the indulgences we grant ourselves (and those in our in-group) that we don’t extend to those outside our in-group. Therefore, before even engaging in a political discussion with friends and family, do your homework.

Doing your homework encompasses several tasks. First, think about the most grievous injustices of the people on the other “team.” Then, scour the internet to see whether these sins were committed by anyone on your “team.” When you do your homework, you may be surprised to learn that actions you thought were “unprecedented” injustices, perpetrated only by members of the other “team” were actually practiced by members of your team to a similar extent.

Of course, rather than cramming for the test, you would be better served by balancing your media exposure on a daily basis, reading an array of articles from across the political spectrum, to keep yourself honest, balanced and informed. However, be very careful when exposing yourself to ALL forms of media. In a piece I wrote entitled, Beware of the Rectangles, I discuss the ways in which all media outlets – liberal and conservative; disseminated in printed form or broadcasted over the airwaves – frame and edit stories to either conform with their target audience’s preexisting beliefs or exaggerate factual details for the sake of capturing more attention. And yes, even your favorite media outlets, which you may believe to be objective and unbiased, do this too. It’s hard for any of us to expose ourselves to ideas that make us uncomfortable, but doing so enhances our ability to see all sides of an issue, which not only makes us more well-rounded, but better debaters as well.

5. REMOVE FROM OVEN: Agree to Disagree

Never in history has a person emerged from a debate saying "You know, when you called me ‘an ignorant psychopath,’ it really made me think, and now I can see I was wrong this whole time.” So, if you have fantasies that you are going to change someone’s mind in a political debate that turns into a pissing match, you might as well fantasize about pigs flying and peace in the Middle East. Rather than fighting to the death, plan in advance for a way to end the discussion with both parties saving face.

Believe-it-or-not, people often do change their minds after a spirited debate (though not usually on the spot). Cases in which I have observed this happen had the following things in common: a) the debaters avoided self-righteous language and logical fallacies (like ad hominem attacks and straw man arguments); b) the debaters’ arguments came from their personal experiences and they prefaced their statements with the phrase: “In my experience…”; and c) both parties validated each other’s perspective as a function of their experience – e.g., “Although I favor more stringent gun control laws, Uncle Bob, I can understand how your experience of being robbed at gun-point, with no police present, has led you to believe that you need a gun to protect yourself at all times.”

Even when abiding to the recommendations above, it is still unlikely that anyone will change their beliefs spontaneously in a debate, regardless of how clear and brilliant your points are. However, when debates proceed as described above, both parties usually walk away with a mutual respect and subconsciously their positions on the issues begin to soften. If each party is honest, when real-world events prove one person’s argument to be more valid that the other’s, the individual whose argument was proven incorrect will find it easier to admit this because of the mutual respect previously established. The corrected party, if they are a person of character, will see the benefit of admitting they were wrong as a way of highlighting their integrity, and they will be much more likely to do so if the debate ends with mutual respect than in a personal squabble about Aunt Barbara’s extramarital affairs or someone’s eyes getting gouged out with plastic cutlery.

The bottom line though, if you take nothing else away from this article, please remember this: Don’t f*#k with the dessert table! Dessert is a sacred meditation on the power of sugar to heal the soul and should NEVER be threatened because of some stupid debate about politics at Thanksgiving dinner.