A different kind of Thanksgiving gratitude

“It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn’t no kings

nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds."

— Mark Twain ("The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn")

By J. Basil Dannebohm

Over the last couple of weeks, I sat down to write my Thanksgiving message several times, only to scrap every draft. Try as I may, I find myself incapable of penning some sappy tribute to the season. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I am ungrateful for the abundance of blessings in my life. I just find it difficult to celebrate when so many people are living in fear and experiencing unspeakable cruelty.

At this very moment in America, our brown-skinned neighbors are being kidnapped off the streets and taken to black sites and concentration camps, where they are inhumanely terrorized. Women, whose reproductive choices and healthcare should be their private business, are being controlled, shamed, and restricted thanks to a bunch of pharisaical activists and politicians who are nothing more than pro-birth hypocrites.

As for the single moms who “chose life?”

The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” inflicts harm on 1 in 5 children who rely on SNAP for daily meals and 35.5% of children who rely on Medicaid for health insurance. While most of that won’t go into effect until after the midterm elections, less than a month ago, many single parents had their food assistance taken away while Trump’s Congressional cronies took a seven-week paid vacation.

The pro-life movement stood mute.

The LGBTQIA+ community lives in fear for their safety. Though you stand a higher chance of being sexually assaulted by a conservative pastor or a billionaire, my transgendered friends receive death threats. My disabled friends have seen their most basic accommodations rolled back. My Muslim, Sikh, Wiccan, and Jewish neighbors live in constant fear of being targeted for their religious beliefs.

I guess I should be thankful that I’m a straight, white Christian male, thereby exempt from most of the cruelty. But I’ll be honest, I’m disappointed with the direction American Christianity has descended.

No, I am not without a sense of gratitude this Thanksgiving.

I am grateful that I am not the type of person who would condone or make excuses for wealthy pedophiles. Though I don’t have children, I am glad to know that I would never be one of those parents I see in the comment threads who say they would have no issue with their teenage daughter posing for a photo with the President while wearing a bikini.

I’m thankful that I am not so vicious that I would don a facemask and take to the streets, kidnapping innocent people and assaulting onlookers.

I am grateful my soul isn’t so ugly that I would compensate by means of cosmetic surgery like the women who will inevitably flock to Mr. Trump’s Thanksgiving table at Mar-a-Lardo. Do you think he refers to them as "piggies," too?

I’m thankful I’m not a “groyper” which is just millennial speak for Nazi.

I am grateful to be a FORMER Republican Legislator who did NOT sell my soul or compromise my dignity to serve every whim of a sociopathic megalomaniac.

I’m thankful that I am not so naïve as to believe that a politician has my best interests at heart.

I’m grateful that I possess the courage necessary to refuse adopting an apathetic attitude in order for a demagogue to establish a self-serving empire of malice.

I’m thankful that I don’t watch Fox News, listen to podcasts, pay attention to “influencers,” or allow myself to become brainwashed.

I’m grateful to have spent the last seven Thanksgivings alone, avoiding people who think Donald J. Trump is “godly,” “virtuous,” and “great.”

On October 3rd, 1863, with a fervent hope that the country would one day heal from the wounds of division, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation designating “the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving.”

The proclamation called upon God to “fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.”

Today, our nation stands more bitterly divided than ever.

In an essay from 1943 entitled, “Religion and Time,” Aldous Huxley wrote, “Reality cannot be ignored, except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.”

Thanks to a slim majority of voters, America must now pay the price, enduring what will be four long years of reckless politics, retribution, and blatant political ignorance.

I am grateful to Almighty God this Thanksgiving, and always, that I didn’t vote for this chaos. May we be delivered from evil.