How to Steer The Conversation Away From Politics at Your Family Thanksgiving

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Every 4 years, for many families, Thanksgiving will be an especially stressful time of year. Volatile even. On election years, hospitals in America see a 300% rise in patient admissions resulting from violent domestic disputes at Thanksgiving dinner. No matter how much a people tell themselves that they will simply avoid political discussion altogether. No matter how desperately you beg your freshman college daughter to not challenge your uncle to explain the implications of tariffs. Or how much you plead with your husband to not go on a tirade about the sanctity of collegiate women's volleyball. Inevitably, your aunt's neighbor will show up to deliver a pumpkin pie her brand new Cybertruck, which will light the fuse of the tinderbox that is your family Thanksgiving, and next thing you know your drunk cousin is dressed as Elisabeth Moss from The Handmaid's Tale and is threatening to perform an abortion on your dog to make a point about Israel. 

It could be especially hard this year. The NFL slate is pretty week. Thank god Drew Lock is starting for the Giants over Tommy DeVito. But I'm still not sure how long Lock + Cowboys' gunslinger Cooper Rush can keep a whole family's attention away from each other. But if you come prepared, you just might be able to slowly bleed out the conversation with interesting enough topics for however many hours necessary until your uncles are drunk enough that their wives see the writing on the wall and hurriedly rushes them out the front door. 

Topic 1: How do we fix the college football playoff?

This should be an easy one. It's something everybody is talking about. The first year of the college football 12-team playoff has been chaos from start to finish. The debate always comes back to, "How much should we value strength of schedule versus overall record?" 

Since the first year of the playoff has been controversial, we obviously need to change everything immediately. We must assure that nobody will ever have to argue about college football again. But how? Do we expand the playoffs ever further? Is it too late to go back to smaller, more regional based conferences? Could we move to flex scheduling at the end of the season to even out strength of schedules? What if the SEC breaks off entirely, and at the end of the season the SEC winner plays the winner of the rest of college football for the National Championship? What if the SEC just goes and fucks themselves? What if we drop a series of nuclear bombs across the southeastern United States from Texas to South Carolina? Some good college football hypotheticals like that will keep the men of the family distracted while dinner is being prepared.

Topic 2: Is Ariana Grande okay?

Since you just talked football, throw the women of your family a bone with some musical talk. Wicked is the most popular movie in America right now. Even your uncles, who could care less about Wicked, will likely remember Ariana Grande as the girl their kids used to watch on Nickelodeon. But recently, photos of Ariana Grande looking concretely skinny have circulated the internet. To the point that people are worried about her health.

Is it possible she's just naturally skinny? Could she have lost that much weight in healthy way? Or does she have some sort of eating disorder? Pull up some photos of Ariana throughout the years and pass them around the table for everyone to judge her body. People loves judging celebrities. Let your family compare her figure at various different stages of her career, and speculate wildly as to what mental problems she may be facing. 

Then remind people that she allegedly stole her current boyfriend Ethan Slater away from his high school sweetheart while working together on the set of Wicked. His high school sweetheart whom he recently had a child with. She accuses Ariana Grande of making their family "collateral damage" in her new romance. Ariana Grande also licked a donut and put it back that one time. 

Is Ariana in crisis? If you were her father, what would you think? What would you do to fix her? Address all of this with your 13-year old cousin who's been listening to the Wicked soundtrack on repeat for the last week and see where that conversation leads.

Topic 3: Have you heard they're fucking the turkeys?

If you can hold political discussion at bay until after dinner, then this is a perfect video to share with the group. It should buy you a solid hour of awkward silence as your family sits quietly around the living room watching the Giants & Cowboys trade punts, wondering to themselves if the delicious bird they stuffed down their throats had been previously stuffed by the herpes-riddled penis of a disgruntled meth addict at the Butterball factory. 

And if "fucking the turkeys" is a little too graphic for your family, feel free to show them the "Turkey Processing Song" music video my dad made back in college. That should have about the same affect. 

Topic 4: Have you heard of World of T-Shirts?

The goal of this topic is to curb the amount of drinking that will take place immediately following dinner. World of T-Shirts (real name Joshua Block) is an autistic TikTok superstar who's devastating plunge into alcoholism has been broadcasted live for all to see. In all sincerity, it's maybe the saddest thing happening on the entire internet right now. Legitimately heartbreaking. The people in his life who encourage his behavior and take advantage of him for financial gain are some of the most despicable human being on the face of the earth. I fucking hate them with all of my heart. Not that Josh isn't responsible for is own actions to a large degree. But I personally hope "Mr. Based" is served a turkey full of thumbtacks and human shit for Thanksgiving this year.

Show your family some videos that depict World of T-Shirt's tragic story arch. That should serve as a quick shot of reality that'll make your family's heaviest drinkers sip their beverages a little more slowly. Even if just for the next 10 minutes or so. Every second counts. 

Topic 5: Is A.J. the Costco Guys Dad exploiting those children?

Since you already have them in the world of TikTok, you might as well roll the conversation over into the Costco guys. First you'll have to explain to the older members of your family who exactly A.J., Big Justice, and The Rizzler are. That will take some time in its own right.

"Ok you've showed me their videos, but what is it they actually do?"

"That's it. They go to Costco and yell boom. They sing a song about boom. Sometimes they show up at wrestling events and say boom."

"Why are their faces like that?"

"They were attacked by bees."

"Do people find them entertaining?"

"No everyone agrees it's pretty much the worst thing they've ever seen."

"So why are they popular? People must like them."

"No not really. But they also love them more than anything in the world."

"And they work for Costco?"

"No I don't think so. They're just on TikTok."

"How do they make money?"

"From TikTok."

"So people pay to watch their videos?"

"No TikTok pays them."

"How does that work?"

"I think money just magically shows up in their bank account every morning."

"How much money?"

"Millions."

"And who is this Rizzler kid? Is he related to them too?"

"No he's just the Rizzler. He'll be hosting the Grammy's next year."

"What happens when he loses the baby fat?"

Honestly you probably won't even get around to the conversations about whether or not A.J. is exploiting the shit out of those kids. Whether setting them up financially for life is worth stripping them of a normal childhood. How playing one long continuous game of "Boom or Doom" that lasts for the duration of their formative years will impact their brains long term. How long until one of them is boxing the dug up corpse of Muhammed Ali for $50 million dollars on BoomTV. etc. etc. 

Topic 6: Is Jake Paul the greatest boxer of our generation?

Now that you've introduced the family to the Costco guys, and you've been discussing TikTok celebrities, the older men in your family will be angrily wondering to themselves, "What the hell is happening to our youngest generation?" It's the perfect time to float a "Jake Paul is real boxer" take out there. You're not saying Jake Paul is necessarily the most talented. But he did just beat Mike Tyson in the most viewed boxing event of the year. Sure, Tyson isn't what he once was, but he still looked pretty scary out there. Tyson still had some power behind those punches. Not just anybody could beat him. It was a real, sanctioned heavyweight fight after all. Jake Paul has put in the necessary dedication and the hard work to be considered a legitimate professional boxer. And if we're being honest, boxing was dying before he came around. He single-handedly saved the sport. You at least gotta give him that.

That should get them all fired up about something that's non-political, but will also scratch that, "Yelling at a stupid fucking family member for being a dumbass" itch they've had inside of them all day. 

Some of those ideas may seem pretty stupid now. But just you wait. When you sit down for Thanksgiving dinner and you hear an in-law say a word that rhymes with 'Palestine', and start to feel something brewing, and you suddenly would rather be anywhere else on earth than at that table, let's see if you don't whip out your phone and hit your family over the head with World of T-Shirts spiking his Smirnoff vodka with Everclear. You'll thank me later. Happy Thanksgiving.