Happy Thanksgiving, knuckleheads!
It's that time of year again. Liberal journalists (but I repeat myself) are freaking out about having to spend some quality time in real America with their families—who love them for the most part but really wish they would get a life and a real job like everyone else. So they start writing all these articles and casting pods about "how to talk to your crazy MAGA uncle at Thanksgiving" or "10 epic PowerPoint slides that will convince your gun-loving Republican family to join Hamas and start caring about soccer." It's sickening.
If you're anything like me, you just want to enjoy Thanksgiving by eating to excess, getting blackout drunk, and loving America. You honor the courageous pioneers who settled this country by utilizing incredibly persuasive negotiating tactics against the native occupiers. You give thanks to 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 about how "freedom is bad" and "crime is good." Horse puckey!
My goal is to help you—a real American with a real job and a life—combat and counteract this insufferable behavior. I'm not an intellectual powerhouse by any means, though many have described me as such. My considerable knowledge was acquired from experience, not by reading about it on a website or pamphlet distributed by trust-fund hippies at the Harvard "die-in" for "climate martyrs." I want to make sure you are armed to the teeth with the necessary weapons (metaphorical and real, if necessary) to survive your Thanksgiving encounter with your loathsome liberal relative.
First, a few nuggets of advice 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.
• Don't hold back! Always use overwhelming (argumentative) force. If you're going to fight, end the fight.
• Don't be a victim! For crying out loud, you're never going to win an argument with a liberal that way. They thrive on victimhood.
Next, a reading assignment. I have assembled the following sample conversation—based on my considerable experience—between myself (Uncle Strickland) and my nephew, Brayden, a 35-year-old bachelor who lives in Brooklyn with three roommates and does God knows what for a living while living off my sister's dime.
Uncle: Hey, slim, what'd you think of the WNBA Finals?
Nephew: I mean, A'ja Wilson is The GOAT, fam. Like, I honestly wasn't sure the Aces could recover after Chelsea Gray went down with that foot injury, but they really fought—
Uncle: It was a rhetorical questions, dumbass! Are you serious right now? No one cares about the WNBA, not even the actors they pay to sit in the stands and watch that garbage. The league is a joke. Their best team would lose to a bunch of middle school boys in wheelchairs. It doesn't make any money, so it relies on subsidies from actual job creators. Kind of like you.
Nephew: Whatever, there's nothing funny about supporting female athletes and gender equality.
Uncle: You got that right.
Nephew: That's actually pretty insulting to all the little girls who are inspired by watching female athletes succeed at the highest level.
Uncle: Yeah, like Brittney Griner.
Nephew: Exactly. What about her?
Uncle: Russian prison is a high-level prison. Isn't that where she ended up for drug smuggling?
Nephew: Well, technically.
Uncle: No one is above the law, right?
Nephew: She was targeted for being a woman of color, not to mention 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 watching grown men dominate in women's sports. Isn't that what "TQ" stands for? "Testosterone Queens"?
Nephew: Ugh, that's not what that stands for.
Uncle: It's gotta suck for those little girls, though. Trying to compete physically against a grown ass man?
Nephew: They're actually women. Gender is a—
Uncle: Jesus Christ, here we go.
Nephew: Whatever.
Uncle: Whatever is right. Gender is whatever we say it is. Only a bigot would disagree.
Nephew: Pretty much.
Uncle: I guess you're still mad that expensive high school you went to wasn't "progressive" enough to let you play on the girls' frisbee team.
Nephew: Frisbee golf, and it was technically co-ed.
Uncle: Oh, that's right, but they still considered you a safety hazard to yourself and others.
Nephew: Because of my disability.
Uncle: Oh, I didn't realize lack of coordination was a disability.
Nephew: It's called ADHD.
Uncle: It's called being a spaz, numnuts.
Nephew: That's ableism.
Uncle: My God. I wish you were "able" to go one second without embarrassing this family.
Nephew: I have to go.
Uncle: Where?
Nephew: I have a Zoom call with my climate therapist in 10 minutes.
Uncle: I'm sorry I asked.
Nephew: Not as sorry as my grandchildren will be when the planet's on fire.
Uncle: Oh, I didn't know you had kids.
Nephew: I don't.
Uncle: And no girlfriend, huh?
Nephew: Not at the moment.
Uncle: Right. That's fine. You're not that ugly. Surely there's a feminist out there in need of a weakling to dominate.
Nephew: Like I said, I have to go.
Uncle: Wait a minute. What you got there, huh? I see something tucked away in that fancy cardigan.
Nephew: Oh, it's nothing.
Uncle: Looks like a printout. Let's see it.
Nephew: Fine. I came across something very interesting on the internet the other day.
Uncle: You mean Ting Tong?
Nephew: TikTok.
Uncle: I'm fascinated already. Go on.
Nephew: In 2002, a Saudi-born freedom fighter named Osama bin Laden, peace be upon him, wrote a "Letter to America" laying out his grievances—
Uncle: Let me stop you right 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 hell, got his brains blown out by American heroes."
Nephew: Can I finish? Wrote a "Letter to America" laying out his grievances, including the ongoing U.S. support for Israel's barbaric occupation of Palestine and the Holocaust of innocent Muslims perpetrated by an elite cabal of—
Uncle: No, Brayden, you may not finish. I would suggest you move to Afghanistan and join the Taliban. I hear they're big WNBA fans.
Nephew: There's nothing wrong with being religious.
Uncle: So, Christianity is fine?
Nephew: Well, no, obviously.
Uncle: Yeah, obviously.
Nephew: It's OK for people of color and historically marginalized communities to believe in God. It's part of their culture.
Uncle: But I can't?
Nephew: White men have a long history of using religion as an instrument of colonial oppression.
Uncle: So you see a bunch of white folks in a church shouting "Praise Jesus!" and think they're a bunch of evil oppressors, but when a bunch of Muslim terrorists shout "Allahu Akbar!" while shooting up a music festival, that's just "part of their culture." Is that right?
Nephew: That's not what I said.
Uncle: So Hamas isn't really a terrorist organization, it's a faith-based community outreach for historically marginalized people of color.
Nephew: It's an armed resistance movement seeking peaceful coexistence through decolonization.
Uncle: By killing all the Jews?
Nephew: By resisting the colonizers.
Uncle: Right. By killing Jews, then running away and hiding in hospitals.
Nephew: That's Israeli propaganda. But even if Hamas fighters do hide in hospitals it's understandable because otherwise they won't win.
Uncle: The terrorists won't win?
Nephew: The colonizers won't be resisted successfully.
Uncle: I don't think you understand how stupid you sound.
Nephew: Obviously I don't mind the Jews, but—
Uncle: I don't think that's obvious.
Nephew: Can I finish?
Uncle: Racist.
Nephew: What?
Uncle: You're a Jew-hating racist.
Nephew: I know you are but what am I?
Uncle: You're a racist who hates Jews.
Nephew: Nice 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 that cost?
Nephew: A few thousand.
Uncle: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Nephew: It's an investment.
Uncle: I see. What's 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, 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 don't follow.
Uncle: I'm sure you don't. No, if you don't mind, I've got to "see a man about a horse." Let me borrow that Osama letter in case we're out of TP in the commode.
Nephew: You should try reading it, he makes some—
Uncle: You should try getting a life, working a real job, and stop seeking moral enrichment by association with genocidal maniacs. Just a thought. Oh, and by the way, my new truck gets three miles to the gallon. Choke on that, son.
