COMMENTARY: Don’t let political differences spoil Thanksgiving

At this time of year, we Americans have the usual Walmart store of blessings to be thankful for.

An extra reason for the entire country to give thanks this week is the fact that the long-dreaded 2024 election is finally in our rearview mirror — and, for half of us, the outcome was a blessing.

Thanksgiving is usually a national holiday that doesn’t get stuck in the swamp of partisan politics. But this year the shocking victory of Donald Trump was too much to take for ordinary Democrats and many of our most fragile liberal TV talking heads and pundits. Three weeks after Election Day, most of the liberal media are still in meltdown mode.

Some nasty newspaper columnists and teary-eyed panelists on CNN are so despondent about Trump’s victory they are willing to spoil the love and fun at half of America’s Thanksgiving dinners. They are urging their fellow Democrats not to invite — or to dis-invite — friends and family members to Thanksgiving dinner who voted for Trump or didn’t vote for Kamala Harris.

Some MAGA hardheads who are just as dumb are saying they aren’t going to sit down with RINOs who hate Trump and think Mitt Romney is a real Republican.

But making our family Thanksgiving tables smaller and smaller because of politics is all wrong. It does nothing but ruin America’s best holiday and further divide the country into partisan bubbles and silos.

My father Ronald Reagan never let politics come between friends and family, especially during Thanksgiving during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. He had two children with Nancy Reagan, Patti and Ron. In 1980 Patti was a member of the Peace and Freedom Party and didn’t vote for her dad for president. Ron didn’t vote for our father, as far as we know.

Both didn’t vote to re-elect their father in 1984, either. In fact, Patti and her friend led a peace march in Washington, D.C., while her father was president of the United States. Patti also has written highly critical books about her relationships with her father and her mother, mostly her mother. And Ron is a lifelong atheist who makes radio ads saying he’s “not afraid of burning in hell.”

So each Thanksgiving at the ranch you had two children who were absolutely opposed to their father’s politics eating with him and the rest of the Reagan family. And if you want to know if those bipartisan family turkey dinners were noisy with angry political arguments, the answer is “No.” Nobody was throwing mashed potatoes or drumsticks at each other, either.

The point I’m making is that these political people I hear dropping my dad’s name on TV all the time could learn a lot from the way he always put politics in its proper place. So this Thanksgiving, don’t ask “What would Ronald Reagan do?” — do what he did. Invite your whole family and your old friends. Sit down and have a turkey dinner with all the fixings. Argue all you want about sports or music. Just don’t ask anyone to pass the politics.

Michael Reagan, the son of President Ronald Reagan, is an author, speaker and president of the Reagan Legacy Foundation. Contact at reagan@caglecartoons.com.