I didn’t go to this year’s Thanksgiving parade. How did I muster the energy to go to the parade in 2016? A known criminal had won the Electoral College and we knew things were going to be terrible. Now this year, a known criminal who is now also known to be a traitor, and who promised to be a dictator on Day One, that bastard has won the Electoral College and a slim majority in the popular vote.
There were guard rails in 2016, and adults in the room. We survived. Somehow. Are there guard rails now? Adults in the room? Maybe. We will survive. Somehow. I don’t know how.
Back then, I held out the faint hope that the recount requested by the Green Party would flip three states. Didn’t happen. Back then I wrote
But with President Hillary Clinton, Kermit the Frog might be more upbeat at next year’s Thanksgiving parade. At least, we’d get to have a Thanksgiving parade, not worried about pogroms and nuclear bombs, not embroiled in Civil War II or World War III.
Hillary Clinton is still around, but there’s no chance now she can be elected president, as you can tell by looking at the people who want her to run in 2028.
There were no pogroms in 2017. Right? But some people really want pogroms in 2025, and they voted accordingly.
President Barack Obama (D, 2009 — 2017) tried very hard to cheer us up for Thanksgiving 2016.
Nearly 400 years ago, a small band of Pilgrims fled persecution and violence and came to this land as refugees in search of opportunity and the freedom to practice their faith. Though the journey was rough and their first winter harsh, the friendly embrace of an indigenous people, the Wampanoag -- who offered gracious lessons in agriculture and crop production -- led to their successful first harvest. The Pilgrims were grateful they could rely on the generosity of the Wampanoag people, without whom they would not have survived their first year in the new land, and together they celebrated this bounty with a festival that lasted for days and prompted the tradition of an annual day of giving thanks.
This history teaches us that the American instinct has never been to seek isolation in opposite corners; it is to find strength in our common creed and forge unity from our great diversity. On that very first thanksgiving celebration, these same ideals brought together people of different backgrounds and beliefs, and every year since, with enduring confidence in the power of faith, love, gratitude, and optimism, this force of unity has sustained us as a people. It has guided us through times of great challenge and change and allowed us to see ourselves in those who come to our shores in search of a safer, better future for themselves and their families.
Too many voters are consumed by hatred to see that, much less understand it.
For generations, our Nation's progress has been carried forward by those who act on the obligations we have to one another. Each year on Thanksgiving, the selflessness and decency of the American people surface in food banks and shelters across our country, in time spent caring for the sick and the stranger, and in efforts to empathize with those with whom we disagree and to recognize that every individual is worthy of compassion and care. As we gather in the company of our friends, families, and communities -- just as the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag did centuries ago -- let us strive to lift up others, promote tolerance and inclusiveness, and give thanks for the joy and love that surround all of us.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim November 24, 2016, as a National Day of Thanksgiving. I encourage the people of the United States to join together -- whether in our homes, places of worship, community centers, or any place of fellowship for friends and neighbors -- and give thanks for all we have received in the past year, express appreciation to those whose lives enrich our own, and share our bounty with others.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
twenty-third day of November, in the year of our Lord two thousand sixteen, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-first.
By the way, the Detroit Lions beat the Chicago Bears in the annual Thanksgiving game, just like they beat the Vikings in the Thanksgiving 2016 game. And that means… I don’t know.
