How To Win Any Political Argument This Thanksgiving
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Thanksgiving, that quintessentially American holiday, is almost upon us. ‘Tis the season for eating like a glutton, dressing children in vaguely racist costumes, drunkenly berating your sister’s new boyfriend, and most importantly, arguing about politics with family members you see at most twice a year. Whether you are trying to own some libs, or defeat your conservative uncle with his own logic, following these simple tips will help you win any political debate that arises this Thursday.
- Never back down
No, it’s not just the title of a trio of severely underrated films that did not get nearly enough respect from the Academy come awards season, it’s also one of the most important things to remember when someone pushes back on your claim that as a teenager, Hillary Clinton played a role in the assassination of Malcolm X. No matter how many of your relatives team up against you, or how many Verrit verification codes get thrown in your face, you have to remember never to back down from your original argument. Once you admit defeat, you will be forever branded as a cuck and sentenced to an eternity of writing in John Kasich for President every four years.
- “What about?” your opponent into Bolivian.
Just like Isaac Newton said, every accusation should be met with an opposite but more defamatory accusation. Does your patchouli smelling aunt keep accusing Roy Moore of being a pedophile between bites of quinoa? Well that may be true, but what about that time Ted Kennedy killed a woman at Chappaquiddick? When your 4chan loving cousin takes a fifteen-minute break from his Tomi Lahren Real Doll to outline his case for why Pizzagate is real, remind him that Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, was the one who originally invented predatory sexual behavior. The way to effectively mitigate any accusation against someone in your party is to remind your opponent that someone from their party at some point in time also did a bad thing.
- Choose your foe wisely
The less frequently you see someone, the more acceptable it is to allow a mild debate about the debt ceiling to devolve into outing your aunt’s affair with her HVAC technician in front of her three middle-school aged children. When you are 29 and your parents are still paying your cell phone bill because GameStop can’t recognize a hard worker when they see one, it’s tough to go all in on your dad over his support for the public option. It’s also important to factor in physical size and hand-to-hand combat skills when deciding just how far to let a political argument go on Thanksgiving. No one wants to show up to work on Monday looking like Rand Paul because they took the wrong side of the abortion debate against their step-brother with a 2-5 amateur MMA record.
- Facts are overrated
The second you find yourself bringing statistics into your argument, you know you have already lost. If anybody cared about a bunch of boring statistics about which tax credits are most effective, a Nate Silver/Ezra Klein candidacy would have a 72.38% chance of winning the White House in 2020. Stats are fine for trying to convince the table why Eli Manning deserves a spot in Canton, but when talking politics, leave the facts and figures out of it. Trump won the Presidency because he understood that politics is about what you feel in your gut, and whether that leads you to a Twitter feud with Lavar Ball or to a craving for a KFC Famous Bowl, it’s better to follow your gut than to be constantly updating your Excel macros to figure out how many white, mid-30s, soccer moms with lower back tattoos you need to win to capture crucial Cuyahoga County.
- Deflect, deflect, deflect
On rare occasions, it’s just best to stay away from politics altogether. Your uncle who claims that he has incontrovertible proof that Michael Moore is running a child sex ring at the local Montessori school is probably not going to be proven otherwise. When this situation arises, try to change the subject quickly to defuse a potentially tense situation. This is the perfect time to note how lenient the judge was for only giving your uncle three months probation for his recent DUI, or reassuring your 32 year-old cousin that with everything going on in the news, maybe it’s not so weird for a grown man to be banned from the local mall.