And yet people are not in a blessing-counting mood, if the polls are to be believed. Only 25 percent of the public believes the country is “on the right track,” according to a RealClearPolitics polling average, whereas 66 percent say the opposite. Voters seem to be giving President Biden little or no credit for the modicum of economic and geopolitical stability over which he has presided. Worse, the latest indications are that about half of voters are so unhappy with the way things are that they might vote next November for former president Donald Trump, a man so obsessed with his own grievances, and so skilled at manipulating the grievances of others, that he pushed this democracy into a violent crisis on Jan. 6, 2021.
What is the right way to think about this seeming disconnect and, perhaps, to talk about it with friends and family? One thing that won’t work is to tell anyone, in effect, to quit complaining and enjoy the latest inflation numbers or gross domestic product growth rate. This is a pragmatic point, since what affects people most in their daily lives is the cost of housing, fuel and food — all of which remain elevated compared with their pre-pandemic levels. It is also a moral point, because citizens, especially those in greatest need or who have faced the greatest marginalization, have a right to be respected in their discontent. Dissatisfaction with the status quo, and the need to address it, is the stuff of democracy. Thanksgiving is a beautiful tradition, deeply ingrained in American culture. It’s not in the Constitution, though. “The right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” is.
Something else that doesn’t work — that must be abhorred — is the expression of discontent in hateful rhetoric or outright violence, both of which have become all too common. There are many recent examples to cite: the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Muslim boy in an alleged hate crime; the charges of involuntary manslaughter against a pro-Palestinian demonstrator for allegedly killing a Jewish counterprotester; the dangerous crowd surge against police protecting a Democratic Party gathering last Wednesday night, this time by protesters demanding a cease-fire in Gaza.
Thanksgiving can offer a respite from all that, not as an occasion to deny or even forget the reasons one might be unhappy but by providing a moment to consider them in perspective. Right now, many thousands of people from all around the world are trekking through the dangerous rainforest connecting Panama and Colombia, bound for the United States. In many cases, they sold their belongings to pay for the trip; often, they are carrying small children in their arms. They are part of a massive human tide that’s swamping our immigration bureaucracy, exposing the inadequacy of our asylum laws, taxing the absorption capacity of our cities, triggering a political backlash — and paying this country an enormous compliment. Like the migrants who gathered for the first Thanksgiving in Massachusetts, 402 years ago, they are betting everything on the belief that America, for all its problems and flaws, is better than the places whence they came — maybe the best place of all.
This is not meant as an observation about the immigration policy of the United States but about the nature of the United States. This country has always been — perhaps it was fated to be — a paradoxical nation whose advantages are linked to its evils and whose most intractable problems are entwined with its loftiest possibilities. Everything Americans are experiencing today, from the tragic to the triumphant, is a reflection of this maddening, magnificent democratic legacy. Be grateful for the chance to be part of it.
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