The first celebration of this autumn feast was in 1621, when Plymouth colonists broke bread with Native Americans in New England. It wasn’t until 1863 that Thanksgiving became a national holiday. President Abraham Lincoln declared the federal holiday to celebrate a crucial Union Army victory at Gettysburg. Two years earlier, Confederate President Jefferson Davis proclaimed a Thanksgiving celebration to commemorate a battle victory by the South.
By the middle of the Twentieth Century, this holiday had evolved into an iconic Norman Rockwell scene: His illustration of a grandmother serving a plump turkey fresh from the oven to family-filled table. In recent decades, Thanksgiving has morphed into both feast and start of the Christmas shopping spasm.
This year, the ripples of divisive anxiety across the nation may make Thanksgiving return to the days of the Civil War. Against the backdrop of Impeachment, families fear what could happen if Uncle Joe, a staunch Donald Trump supporter, sips some wine and gets into it with Aunt Mary, who is still angry about Hillary Clinton’s defeat.
Rituals that once united Americans—football, holidays, the national anthem—now seem to drive our national schism deeper. Consider the results of a recent NPR public opinion survey that found 65 percent of American voters can’t imagine any information or testimony that might change their minds about Impeachment. Eighty six percent of Democrats are more likely to support impeaching the president after learning the evidence so far, while 83 percent of Republicans are less likely.
What’s happened is that politics changed. Republicans and Democrats once fought vigorously during campaigns, then accepted the voters verdict. Neither side thought apocalypse was nigh if their side lost. There was no social media to magnify the narcissism of small things.
Prejudice isn’t new. Our society always had divisions along borders of wealth, age, race, creed, gender, sexual orientation. But there were institutions that leavened these differences. Public education, government, labor unions and religion were among them. Foremost was the military.
There was an era, for example, when we believed that those who benefit from the fruits of society should share equally in its defense. This was enforced for men by the military draft. A recently as World War II Ivy educated and high school drop-out blended in uniform. Roosevelts, Kennedys, Pells and Bushes all served. It wasn’t perfect; it wasn’t until after the war that Harry Truman desegregated the armed forces .
The Vietnam War ended the draft. It isn’t coming back. The military isn’t for everyone; there were pacifists, such as the Christian socialist David Dellinger, who refused to fight in the second World War.
There is no easy solution to our national woes. Yet there is a modest idea that could help young people from diverse backgrounds blend. That would be a national service program that would allow young Americans to serve their nation and communities while also getting out of their red state-blue state zones. Those who work together in City Year, or Teach for America, focus on mentoring and teaching in public schools. These programs draw volunteers from across the racial, wealth and gender spectrum. They could be expanded. How about free college tuition for students who agree to a year or two of national service in some form. Perhaps working for an environmental group, working in Head Start or in a hospital or nursing home.
National service won’t save our democracy. But it would be a small step in creating a civic culture that stresses, as philosopher Michael Sandel put it, “concern for the whole, a moral bond with the community whose fate is at stake.”
In the meantime, we here at The Public’s Radio wish you a festive and happy Thanksgiving. Try as best you can to remember that what unites us as Americans and humans is bigger than what divides us.
Scott MacKay’s commentary can be heard every Monday at 6:45 and 8:45 during Morning Edition and at 5:44 in the afternoon.
