Happy Thanksgiving, idiots!
It’s that time of year again. Liberal journalists (but I repeat myself) are freaking out about having to spend quality time in real America with their families – most of whom love them but really want to have a life and a real job like everyone else. So they start writing all these articles and dropping vignettes about “how to talk to your crazy MAGA uncle this Thanksgiving” or “10 epic PowerPoint slides that will convince your gun-loving Republican family to join Hamas and start to care about football.” It’s disgusting.
If you’re like me, you just want to enjoy Thanksgiving by overeating, getting drunk, and loving America. You honor the courageous pioneers who colonized this country using incredibly persuasive negotiation tactics against the native occupiers. You thank God for our good fortune and watch football on television. The last thing you want is to listen to some punkass pipsqueak handing out “fact sheets” and lecturing everyone that “freedom is bad” and “crime is good.” Horse puck!
My goal is to help you, a real American with a real job and a real life, combat and thwart this unbearable behavior. I am by no means an intellectual powerhouse, although many describe me as such. My considerable knowledge was gained through experience, not from reading on a website or a pamphlet handed out by trust fund hippies at the Harvard “die-in” for “climate martyrs.” I want to make sure you’re armed to the teeth with the necessary weapons (metaphorical and real, if necessary) to survive your Thanksgiving encounter with your loathsome liberal parent.
First, some tips you should always remember:
• Go on the offensive! The best way to defend yourself in these situations is to strike preemptively. Don’t go groveling to the United Nations for approval.
• Do not hold back ! Always use overwhelming (argumentative) force. If you want to fight, end the fight.
• Don’t be a victim! For crying out loud, you will never win an argument with a liberal that way. They thrive on victim status.
Next, a reading assignment. I’ve put together the following example conversation – based on my considerable experience – between me (Uncle Strickland) and my nephew, Brayden, a 35-year-old single man who lives in Brooklyn with three roommates and does God knows what to earn his life while living on my sister’s money.
Uncle: Hey, slim, what do you think about the WNBA Finals?
Nephew: I mean, A’ja Wilson is The GOAT, fam. Honestly, I wasn’t sure the Aces could recover after Chelsea Gray suffered a foot injury, but they really fought…
Uncle: It was a rhetorical question, stupid! Are you serious right now? Nobody cares about the WNBA, not even the actors they pay to sit in the stands and watch this garbage. The league is a joke. Their best team would lose to a group of middle schoolers in wheelchairs. It makes no money and therefore depends on subsidies from real job creators. A little like you.
Nephew: Regardless, there is nothing funny about supporting female athletes and gender equality.
Uncle: You’re totally right.
Nephew: This is actually quite insulting to all the little girls who are inspired by seeing female athletes succeed at the highest level.
Uncle: Yeah, like Brittney Griner.
Nephew: Exactly. About her?
Uncle: The Russian prison is a high-level prison. Isn’t that where she ended up for drug trafficking?
Nephew: Well, technically.
Uncle: No one is above the law, right?
Nephew: She was targeted because she was a woman of color, let alone a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community.
Uncle: That’s easy for you to say.
Nephew: Pardon?
Uncle: Now that you mention it, it’s kind of funny to see grown men dominating in women’s sports. Isn’t that what “TQ” means? “The queens of testosterone”?
Nephew: Ugh, that’s not what it means.
Uncle: But it must suck for these little girls. Are you trying to physically compete with a grown man?
Nephew: They are actually women. The genre is a…
Uncle: Jesus Christ, here we go.
Nephew: Never mind.
Uncle: Whatever is right. Gender is what we say. Only a fanatic would disagree.
Nephew: Instead.
Uncle: I guess you’re still angry because the expensive high school you attended wasn’t “progressive” enough to let you play on the girls’ frisbee team.
Nephew: Frisbee golf, and it was technically mixed.
Uncle: Oh, that’s true, but they still considered you a danger to your safety and the safety of others.
Nephew: Because of my disability.
Uncle: Oh, I didn’t realize that lack of coordination was a handicap.
Nephew: This is called ADHD.
Uncle: It’s called being a spaz, idiot.
Nephew: This is ableism.
Uncle: My God. I wish you were “able” to go a second without embarrassing this family.
Nephew: I have to go.
Uncle: Or?
Nephew: I have a Zoom call with my climatotherapist in 10 minutes.
Uncle: I’m sorry for asking.
Nephew: Not as sorry as my grandchildren will be when the planet is on fire.
Uncle: Oh, I didn’t know you had kids.
Nephew: I don’t know.
Uncle: And no girlfriend, huh?
Nephew: Not for the moment.
Uncle: RIGHT. It is very good. You are not that ugly. Surely there is a feminist who needs a weakling to dominate.
Nephew: Like I said, I have to go.
Uncle: Wait a minute. What do you have there, huh? I see something hidden in this fancy cardigan.
Nephew: Oh, it’s nothing.
Uncle: It looks like a print. Let’s see.
Nephew: GOOD. I came across something very interesting on the Internet the other day.
Uncle: You mean Ting Tong?
Nephew: TIC Tac.
Uncle: I’m already fascinated. Keep on going.
Nephew: In 2002, a Saudi-born freedom fighter named Osama bin Laden, peace be upon him, wrote a “Letter to America” outlining his grievances:
Uncle: Let me stop you there. I think what you’re trying to say is: “In 2011, a Saudi-born terrorist bitch named Osama bin Laden, may he burn in hellhad his brains blown out by American heroes.”
Nephew: Can I finish? He wrote a “Letter to America” outlining his grievances, including the United States’ continued support for Israel’s barbaric occupation of Palestine and the Holocaust of innocent Muslims perpetrated by an elite cabal. ..
Uncle: No, Brayden, you can’t finish. I suggest you move to Afghanistan and join the Taliban. I heard they are big WNBA fans.
Nephew: There is nothing wrong with being religious.
Uncle: So, Christianity is good?
Nephew: Well, no, obviously.
Uncle: Yeah, obviously.
Nephew: It is normal for people of color and historically marginalized communities to believe in God. It’s part of their culture.
Uncle: But I can not ?
Nephew: White men have long used religion as an instrument of colonial oppression.
Uncle: So you see a group of white people in a church shouting “Praise Jesus!” and think they are a bunch of evil oppressors, but when a bunch of Muslim terrorists shout “Allahu Akbar!” by organizing a music festival, it is simply “part of their culture”. Is it correct?
Nephew: That’s not what I said.
Uncle: So Hamas is not really a terrorist organization, it is a faith-based community action for historically marginalized people of color.
Nephew: It is an armed resistance movement that seeks peaceful coexistence through decolonization.
Uncle: By killing all the Jews?
Nephew: By resisting the colonizers.
Uncle: RIGHT. By killing Jews, then fleeing and hiding in hospitals.
Nephew: This is Israeli propaganda. But even if Hamas fighters are hiding in hospitals, this is understandable, because otherwise they will not win.
Uncle: The terrorists will not win?
Nephew: We will not successfully resist the colonizers.
Uncle: I don’t think you understand how stupid you look.
Nephew: Obviously, Jews don’t bother me, but—
Uncle: I don’t think it’s obvious.
Nephew: Can I finish?
Uncle: racist.
Nephew: What?
Uncle: You are a racist who hates Jews.
Nephew: I know you are but what am I?
Uncle: You are a racist who hates Jews.
Nephew: Good try. I’m actually a level six cadet at the Ibram X. Kendi Academy for Anti-Racist Online Studies.
Uncle: Oh yeah? How much did it cost?
Nephew: A few thousand.
Uncle: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.
Nephew: It’s an investment.
Uncle: I see. Who is your alpha?
Nephew: I mean, not in the financial sense.
Uncle: So nothing?
Nephew: Social progress and personal edification. The returns are incalculable.
Uncle: I bet they are. You know, the thing about money is that you can wipe your ass with it and it’s still legal tender.
Nephew: What are you talking about?
Uncle: You can wipe your ass with it, but you don’t have to set it on fire when you’re done.
Nephew: I’m not.
Uncle: I’m sure that it’s not the case. No, if you don’t mind, I have to “see a man about a horse.” Let me borrow this letter from Osama in case we run out of TP in the toilet.
Nephew: You should try reading it, it actually—
Uncle: You should try to earn a living, work a real job, and stop seeking moral enrichment by associating with genocidal maniacs. Just a thought. Oh, and by the way, my new truck gets three miles per gallon. Choke on it, my son.
