Say Grace

Happy thanksgiving, my good (fellow) man

This will be brief because I know (or hope!) that you have better things to do than plow through another of my newsletter editions on a national holiday.

Though some of my previous holiday messages have a light political tint (e.g., e.g., etc.), I hardly ever tie them to current events. But I was inspired to today’s homily by this story from People magazine:

Trump Calls Female Reporter ‘Ugly, Both Inside and Out’ Less Than 2 Weeks After ‘Piggy’ Remark on Air Force One

You can go get the details if you like, but why. Earlier, Trump had given the traditional Presidential pardon to a pair of Thanksgiving turkeys, and laced it with unseemly jibes at his enemies (“Trump uses turkey pardons to hit Biden, ‘big fat slob’ JB Pritzker”) and copious self-praise.

Thus what is normally an occasion to gratefully reflect upon the blessings of liberty was turned into another lurid scene in our national decline. But what I fasten on is how devoid of anything resembling graciousness he is, or even decent manners.

Being an animal, Trump will behave in his customary manner whatever the occasion, snarling or nuzzling or dozing like a tired old dog. But many animals at least have social instincts beyond dominance and submission. Most desirable human qualities elude him as well, God knows, but when it comes to graciousness he’s in an entirely different universe.

If it were just him, it would be bad enough. But his boorish example is followed by his goons, in high office and in DOGE and ICE, and seemingly by a subset of ordinary citizens as well — incels, MAGAs, MRA creeps — who might have been assholes in any case but are emboldened by the success of the uber-asshole to be pointedly worse.

But we who are blessed with self-awareness know there are occasions that call for graciousness, or at the very least good manners.

Manners aren’t everything, and when they are insisted on, as when Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy tells us that the air travel he has fucked up so terribly won’t be so noticeable if we all just dress up and act polite, they are counterproductive.

But when you have internalized a normal amount of politesse, whether by proper upbringing or by a simple desire to be welcome among decent people, you usually make it easier for those around you to be happy, relaxed, and well-mannered in turn.

I don’t mean Alphonse-and-Gaston manners, but manners that can be helpful even in less formal environments — like in a mosh pit or a protest where the kids, as the saying goes, take care of each other, or on a city bus where, when it gets crowded, riders make efforts not to impose or encroach on each other.

Manners are the protocols of graciousness; graciousness comes out of grace, as civility comes out of civilization; these rely on, and draw strength from, our awareness of and respect for those around us.

So this Thanksgiving let us be as kind to one another as we can, on the busy highways and in last-minute store lines and at the table, and thankful not only for our bounty and for our freedoms (and for our common resistance to all assaults upon them), but also that we are blessed with awareness of our common humanity and the sense to act on it. Not everyone is so fortunate.