On Wednesday’s episode of “The Michael Knowles Show,” Knowles talks about the media’s annual Thanksgiving tradition: Instructing left-wingers on how to cope with conservative relatives. Video and partial transcript below:
How are they going to do it? How are our poor, left-wing relatives possibly going to endure the torture and suffering of having to speak to conservative relatives at the Thanksgiving table?
That is the question posed by left-wing outlets every single year. This year, from AlterNet, “How to talk impeachment with your right-wing uncle over the holidays.” That’s me, by the way — that entire piece is about me. Indypendent: “How to Deal with your Trump-loving uncle this holiday season.” MarketWatch, this is from MarketWatch Opinion: “How to Win Every Economic and political argument with your family this Thanksgiving.”
Now MarketWatch, in their headline, they try to make it seem like it’s balanced, like it could go either for the Left or the Right, but then you read the article, you realize it’s all just about how to deal with your crazy conservative uncle. It’s all just about how to refute right-wing arguments. Say, also from MarketWatch: “How to talk about the economy with your family at Thanksgiving.” Same thing, it seems like it’s balanced, but it’s actually just about how to refute conservatives.
That piece begins:
“If your uncle corners you at Thanksgiving dinner,” you know corners you, like all us conservative uncles do, “and starts talking about how the U.S. economy is the best it’s ever been, what should you do?” How should you respond?
Beyond the think pieces, Bernie Sanders himself has some advice on how to deal with your conservative uncle at Thanksgiving.
SANDERS: If you are going home and, you know, getting nervous about arguing with your mom or your dad, or your aunt or your uncle, I think the point to be made is that what we are fighting for, the values that we are fighting for, are really not new values. I mean, they go back literally thousands of years. The right that we treat each other the way we want to be treated.
That’s what we want to do, we want to treat each other the way that we want to be treated. But it’s all the — think about the premise of this. The premise is you’re nervous about talking to your mom, or your dad, or your uncle, because they might be conservative and you’ve never talked any conservative, so how on earth are you possibly going to do that? Well, you’ve got it, it’s so, so important.
How about in the past? From the L.A. Times: “What to do if you’re crazy right-wing uncle comes to Thanksgiving.” What to do if he comes to Thanksgiving? You’re hoping that the conservative relatives don’t even show up — they’re not even expected in polite society. They shouldn’t be here at all. But if they do, you’ve got to deal with that, you’ve got to deal with having a relative who has a different political view than yours. Here’s how you can talk to him.
Salon magazine: “How to argue with the right-wing relatives.” How to argue with them — that’s what Thanksgivings all about, picking fights with your right-wing relatives. Mother Jones: “You won’t change your cranky conservative uncle in one dinner conversation.” That old crank, you know, that old cranky conservative.
The New York Times: “How to Have a Conversation With Your Angry Uncle Over the Holidays.” Are conservatives really the angry ones here? Are conservatives really the crazy ones — the crazy ones? Because if all I had to go on were just those headlines from all those newspapers and magazines, and Bernie Sanders — if that’s all I had to go on — I would say it’s actually the leftists that are the angry ones. I would say the only people who seem crazed here are the left-wingers.
You’ll notice that you never see articles the other way around. I have seen scores, if not hundreds of articles — probably hundreds — that say how to deal with your crazy Republican uncle. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen an article that says “How to Deal With Your Crazy Liberal Niece.” Maybe one or two, maybe. I don’t even have any recollection of that — It only goes in one direction. It’s advice for liberals on how to deal with their conservative relatives, and always describes the conservative relatives as crazed and angry.
That’s because the Left projects — whatever is true of them, they project onto others. Why all the articles? Why do the articles only go in one direction? They need the articles because they actually can’t refute our arguments.
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