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Illustration by Drew Shannon | For all the made-for-cable talk about a war on Christmas, it's a war on Thanksgiving that has been raging for years. It's been waged by big businesses eating up all the holidays that workers should be spending with their friends and families, writes Michael Schaffer in this week's Capital City column . "If you didn't notice this war, the chances are that you have an office job. In white-collar America, holidays still mostly mean something. But for retail workers, the pre-Covid expansion of Black Friday was just another step in a decades-long desacralization of the entire holiday calendar." With Presidents Day and Memorial Day long gone and even the 4th of July turning into a workday, it was only a matter of time until the vortex of Black Friday ate up the previous day's festivities altogether. But this year, there's something to be thankful for: Stores are actually closing. Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Old Navy — they were all mercifully shuttered yesterday. Whether the trend will continue in years to come — when factors like inflation, worker shortages and lingering fears of Covid might have less of an effect — remains to be seen. But this year, at least, some of the workers facing today's shopping hordes got to spend Thanksgiving with their families. "Thanksgiving is our greatest holiday precisely because it's egalitarian and ecumenical and endlessly customizable," Schaffer writes. "You don't have to buy gifts; it's hard to make it fancy; it can be secular or sacred. At base, it's about acknowledging that we're all in this together, and we all got a little help along the way. What the cable-news culture warriors don't get (and neither do the campus types who assert that the holiday is horrific because its origin story covers up a genocide) is that the meaning of the day is way more important than either loyally upholding or furiously destroying the fairy tale. "One way to honor that meaning: Make sure as many people as possible get their day off." Read Schaffer's column .
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| "The only red wave this season is going to be if our German shepherd … knocks over the cranberry sauce on our table." Can you guess who said this? Scroll to the bottom for the answer.**
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Elon Musk's brand of tech libertarianism has attracted a diehard fanbase. | Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue |
Musk Mania … Elon Musk's erratic management of Twitter has stoked fears of misinformation and even a potential collapse of the site. But it's also animated an army of Musk's super-fans who are drawn to his style and politics — a merging of Silicon Valley founder worship, classically libertarian laissez faire values and modern Republican culture warring, writes Derek Robertson.
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| 14 percent … of voters who consider education their number one issue identify as vegetarian, compared with just 2 percent of overall voters.
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Rep.-elect Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) walks through the U.S. Capitol Rotunda, Nov. 18, 2022. | Francis Chung/POLITICO | How Dems Can Save the Latino Vote … As Democrats lose more and more Latino voters to the GOP, some political strategists argue that the party should rush toward the middle to stanch the bleeding. Not Illinois Rep.-elect Delia Ramirez, who's economically progressive message led her to victory in a heavily Democratic district with a 40-plus percent Hispanic population. Instead, she says, Democrats need to show working-class Latinos that the party will fight a "rigged" economic system that favors, as she put it to Minho Kim , "a bunch of riquillos," or rich people.
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| The World Cup is well under way, and all eyes are on host-nation Qatar. Not exactly up to speed on the sporting event, or the geopolitical intrigue surrounding it? These tips will have you sounding like an expert. - Qatar's opening ceremony on Sunday focused on inclusion, but all rainbow-themed gear had been banned by the very next day, including the "One Love" armband seven European teams wanted to wear in protest of Qatar's anti-LGBTQ laws. - National security nerds in particular will be watching the U.S. vs. Iran match on Tuesday. The last time Iran played the U.S. in a World Cup match was in 1998. Iran won, but the Americans are the odds-on favorite this time. - Iranian players stayed mute during their national anthem while their fans held up signs dissing the Iranian regime, in solidarity with nationwide demonstrations against a strict rule mandating that women wear hijabs. - Halftime is the perfect moment to debate the nullification on Sunday of the fastest goal in World Cup history, when the VAR (video assistant referee) called a kneecap and shin offsides in the opening game between Qatar and Ecuador. - While everyone is cheering for their squad, give a moment of thanks to the migrant workers who built seven new stadiums, roads, a metro system, dozens of hotels and an entire city over the last 12 years in Qatar. Foreign workers are said to have endured severe injuries, an abusive work environment and nonpayment of wages, with the International Labour Organization reporting that 50 workers were killed and 500 were severely injured in 2020 alone.
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Woolsey Hall stands on the Yale University campus, April 27, 2016. | Pat Eaton-Robb/AP Photo | How Both Sides Dropped Free Speech … This spring, when Sarah Isgur gave a talk at Yale, a conservative student took her to task for a grave violation: She had hugged the liberal associate dean of students, whom she'd known for over 15 years. "How did we get here?" she asks in this essay about the fraught atmosphere around freedom of speech on campus — a problem she sees on the left and right alike.
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President Richard Nixon walks his daughter, Tricia, down the aisle in the Rose Garden in 1971. | Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum | Last week, President Joe Biden joined the short list of commanders in chief (only three in the past 60 years) who have hosted a direct relative's wedding ceremony at the White House when his granddaughter, Naomi Biden, got married on the South Lawn. The last was Richard Nixon, pictured here walking his daughter, Tricia, down the aisle in the Rose Garden in 1971. "It was one of the greatest weddings of America," says White House historian Jennifer Pickens. Around 400 guests attended, with 110 million people watching from home. "They even released the recipe for the cake," Pickens says. Tricia Nixon Cox was said to have gotten the idea to have her wedding at the White House while walking through the Rose Garden at night with her fiance, Edward Finch Cox, as a light snow fell. She invited three living First Daughters to the ceremony, and more than 500 media credentials were doled out, according to Pickens. Despite the lavishness of such an event, taxpayers need not worry about the cost of a wedding at the White House: The expenses are charged directly to the president.
| | | **Who Dissed answer: That's right, it was President Joe Biden, poking fun at Republicans' disappointing midterm performance at the traditional turkey pardoning on Monday. The two birds, Chocolate and Chip, got off easy. No word on whether first pooch Commander got any of that sauce. politicoweekend@email.politico.com | | | | Follow us | | | | |
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