Trump's Patterns: The Thanksgiving Table
The most appropriate of the seven basic plots to explore these future implications is Tragedy. This plot structure traces the inevitable downfall of a protagonist due to a fatal flaw or a set of inescapable circumstances. Here, the “protagonist” is not one person but the family unit itself, and the tragedy is the irretrievable loss of a shared reality.
The ghost of Thanksgivings past is what I remember most. I remember the smell of my grandmother’s kitchen mingling with the crisp November air. I remember the easy laughter as my brother, Mark, and my Aunt Carol would spar over politics. It was a sport—spirited, sometimes loud, but always followed by a shared slice of pumpkin pie. The arguments were about policies, about ideas. They were never about reality itself.
This year, the air is thick with something else. It isn’t the scent of turkey; it’s the suffocating tension of two worlds colliding.
The first volley is fired before we even sit down. Aunt Carol mentions an article she read in a newspaper I still consider reputable. “Did you see what the non-partisan budget office said?” she begins.
Mark scoffs from the doorway. “You mean the deep state budget office? You still read that garbage?”
And just like that, the ground gives way. The shared foundation we once stood on—the assumption that we were all at least reading from the same library, if not the same book—has vanished. This is the Erosion of a Shared Factual Basis playing out not on a screen, but over my grandmother’s antique dining table.
I try to mediate, to be the swing voter in our family’s fractured electorate. “Let’s just try to have a nice dinner,” I plead, my voice already sounding faint. But the system is already in motion.
Aunt Carol, unable to let it go, pushes back with facts and figures. Each point she makes is an act of Opponent & Media Condemnation. But instead of persuading Mark, her words become fuel. I can see it in his eyes—the hardening, the retreat into the fortress of his beliefs. He’s not just defending a politician; he’s defending his identity. Her criticism triggers the Rallying Effect. An attack on his leader is an attack on him, on his team, on his world. His voice gets louder, his arguments more passionate. He is energized by her opposition.
My grandmother, once the vibrant center of these gatherings, is now a silent observer. She flinches with every raised voice, her eyes darting between her daughter and her grandson. She represents the institution of our family, and I am watching the Public Trust in Institutions erode in real-time. The table, once a symbol of unity, has become a battlefield in a cold civil war.
I look at Mark, whose face is flush with the righteousness of his cause, and I feel nothing but a profound sense of loss. His Base Energization is so powerful, so all-consuming, that it leaves no room for the brother I knew. And as I look at Aunt Carol, whose frustration has curdled into disdain, I realize my own exhaustion. This is Swing Voter Alienation. It isn’t a political calculation; it’s an emotional retreat. I no longer have the energy to bridge the chasm because the chasm has become the entire landscape.
The dinner ends not with a bang, but with the quiet scraping of forks on empty plates. The silence is heavier than any argument. Mark leaves early. Aunt Carol stays to help with the dishes, her lips a thin, hard line.
My grandmother grips my hand as I say goodbye. Her touch is frail. “It used to be so different,” she whispers, her eyes glistening.
That’s the tragedy. The fatal flaw wasn’t in any one person but in the system we had all become a part of. We didn’t just lose an argument over politics. We lost the shared world where such an argument could even matter. The Normalization of Outrage had finally claimed its seat at our table, and in its presence, there was no room for family.
Modifications for Different Stakeholders
For a Political Strategist (Opponent): The story would be framed as a tactical case study. The emotional core would be muted, focusing on Aunt Carol’s strategic failure. The narrative would conclude: “Subject A (Carol) initiated a fact-based confrontation, which proved counter-productive. It fed the ‘Rallying Effect’ loop, further energizing Subject B (Mark) and solidifying his ideological position. A more effective approach would involve identifying a shared value (e.g., ‘protecting the family’s future’) and framing arguments around that, seeking to weaken the reinforcing loop rather than strengthening it through direct conflict.”
For a Media Outlet/Journalist: The story would be told entirely from Sarah’s internal perspective, emphasizing her struggle to navigate the information chaos. It would include her silently fact-checking Mark’s claims on her phone under the table, only to realize that presenting the evidence would be futile. The story would end with her reflection: “Mark didn’t just have different opinions; he had different facts, sourced from a universe I couldn’t access. As a journalist, my job is to report the truth. But what is my role when the very definition of truth is what’s being contested at the dinner table?”
For a Community Organizer/Therapist: The story would focus on the emotional toll, using Grandma as the central figure. It would feature more dialogue showing how political labels (”You’re just a brainwashed liberal,” “You’re a hateful deplorable”) have replaced personal relationships (”my aunt,” “my nephew”). The takeaway would be about the human cost of these systemic forces and would conclude with a question: “The tragedy wasn’t a political disagreement; it was the dissolution of empathy. The challenge now is not to win the argument, but to find a way for Mark and Carol to see each other as family again, to find a human story that can exist outside the all-consuming political one.”
Do you know someone for whom this story might be relevant?
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