Gird Your Giblets

Thanksgiving. What exactly is there to celebrate this year?

Thanksgiving. What exactly is there to celebrate this year? Not much. And this will surely be the case for many years to come — or at least for as long as Trump and the GOP are in power. And when their regime falls, as it is destined to do, there will be an era of repairing the damage, our own version of Germany’s “Wolfszeit.” Count on there being way more than a few rotations around the sun before we can celebrate this holiday again with conviction.

So, gird your giblets. And consider alternatives to the usual observation of the 1621 feast shared by Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Native Americans. For the time being, shove Thanksgiving to the back of the shelf, that one in the far corner of the pantry where there’s no lighting. And find something else to do on the fourth Thursday of November.

For the time being, Thanksgiving is dead.

What lies ahead, once Trump hits his expiration date, looks to be similar to post-WWII Germany: widespread devastation, chaos, an economy in collapse, with extreme food and housing shortages, rampant crime, and neighbors pitted against neighbors. Millions of people will be displaced and unemployed, most without sufficient healthcare, and there will be a significant decrease in quality of life for all but the very wealthy. We are well on our way, with 2026 looking to be our turning point USA.

Like Charlie Kirk, we are fucked.

Time and again, history has taught us that when the majority of a country’s wealth is held by just a few, the result is political and economic instability, as well as social unrest. During these periods of acute inequality, like the Gilded Age (a Trump favorite), when as much as 60% of the American population lived below the poverty line, people also experienced unprecedented exploitation in the workplace. This is where our country is headed. Much of Project 2025’s platform, the blueprint for every executive order and every bill currently making its way through Congress, pays homage to the Gilded Age, but in doing so, The Heritage Foundation fails to address the devastating social impact that was part and parcel of that era’s economic model. And that omission is either out of ignorance or because they do not care. I think we all know which is most likely.

Happy times do not lie ahead for most Americans. The only people who will reap the benefits of Trump’s Golden Age: oligarchs and politicians. We are entering a period of widespread political and corporate corruption, a time when monopolies will dominate all sectors of the economy.

Everything else is being shoved aside. Bulldozed.

Yep. We’ve blown through many red flags over the last nine years — the two most impactful being the immigrant issue, and then the reinstatement of child labor in major industries that are exceptionally dangerous for children, like manufacturing, food processing, meat packing, farm labor, construction, and roofing.

Children who are forced to work, typically due to family problems (financial, parent disability or addiction, etc.), face challenges that compromise their physical, mental, and social development, and working means these children are less able to take advantage of educational opportunities, or partake in sports and the arts, all of which exacerbate the intergenerational cycle of poverty. These regressive changes in labor laws are occurring primarily in red states, which hurt children in other ways as well, with fewer programs to address food insecurity, housing, and healthcare issues. Child-unfriendly states include Iowa, Arkansas, Indiana, Florida, Wisconsin, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, and Kentucky. We all need to be calling these folks out. They deserve public shaming. Maybe start with Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who signed a law that removed the “arbitrary burden on parents” that required state permission for their children to work. There’s some twisted shit — from a mother of three, whose kids did not enter the labor market at age 14.

Know this: child labor is slave labor. No one can live on $13/hour without benefits. That is not possible, not anywhere in the United States. There are now 4 million children working legally in the U.S., with an additional 1-2 million employed illegally, often working in exploitative conditions where they are paid considerably less than $13/hour. And get this: the Fair Labor Standards Act now allows employers to pay employees under the age of 20, a wage of $4.25 per hour for their first 90 days of employment. And as one might imagine, there are employers who churn child labor to take full advantage of this exception — basically, hiring children for 90 days at the rate of $4.25/hour, then letting them go — repeating this cycle ad nauseam. That is slavery, in my book.

Enjoy your oyster stuffing over the holidays. Shirley Temple (on the left) shucked a dozen of those just for you. Now she needs a nap.

And get this: though you can’t buy cigarettes until you’re 18, you can work in tobacco fields starting at age 12, even though the known health risks to children are significant. The states that take advantage of this: North Carolina, Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, and Pennsylvania. You know, all those family-first, Christian, MAGA states.

Thank you, Republicans and the evangelical Christians you rode in on.

Photo from “Teens of the Tobacco Fields: Child Labor in United States Tobacco Farming” from Human Rights Watch.

Hey! All you bible-thumping MAGA folks who voted for GOP governors and legislators — fucking shame on you. Your pals at the state and federal levels are more interested in lining their pockets than protecting children. Republican politicians get huge perks from major lobbying groups like the Foundation for Government Accountability, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the innocuous-sounding American Legislative Exchange Council. And then there is the money from all the industry lobbyists in construction, manufacturing, agriculture, restaurants, and food service, etc. Almost every last cent of this lobbying money goes into Republican pockets.

This is why we need to leave food service and meatpacking jobs to adults…

Children in the era of Trump don’t stand a chance — their safety nets are being taken away, leaving millions with no option but to work, which they do as they simultaneously live in extreme poverty, and try to balance a grueling schedule of employment and school.

So, no. I will not be breaking bread this Thanksgiving with anyone who supports Trump’s hardline immigration policies, nor anyone who voted in politicians who are taking away food, shelter, and healthcare for children, underprivileged families, the disabled, vets, the mentally ill, and other marginalized groups.

Other red flags signaling the GOP's lack of concern for the well-being of Americans include their acceptance of money from lobbyists seeking to eliminate minimum wage, weaken labor unions, diminish workplace safety, and alleviate environmental protections. These changes in the law only benefit large corporations and the politicians who enjoy their perks.

With REPUBLICANS, it’s always about the money, not their constituents. They are infinitely proud of all the damage they have done, documenting it all on their Project 2025 Tracker.

This is Ann Telnaes’ sketch that The Washington Post refused to publish. Depicted are Bezos, Altman, Zuckerberg, Soon-Shiong, and Disney, all giving money and bowing at the altar of Trump. WaPo’s refusal to publish this Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist’s piece prompted her to quit.

Our current concentration of wealth among a handful of oligarchs is unsustainable, as we are quickly learning, and is severely weakening our democracy, propelling self-serving politicians into top leadership, who then amplify racial and gender inequalities and stir up religious tension. And holy shit… what all of this has done to the price of groceries in less than a year, I don’t need to tell you.

We have officially arrived at Trump’s Golden Age, where the top 10% of our population has an iron grip on nearly 70% of the country’s wealth. That’s your blood, sweat, and tears, baby, in their pockets.

This cannot continue. Call me a socialist. Whatever.

And though I’m positive Jesus was not the son of God (as there is no god), I’m pretty damn sure he was a socialist.

Heck, we are already halfway through the Project 2025 demolition of our democracy, and it’s not even been a year. Great job, Trump & Co. You’re going to need to loosen your belt to fit in all of that pork. You won’t even have room for turkey.

Where should you send your gratitude this fourth Thursday in November? To our country’s AMAZING farmworkers. ¡Muchas gracias! You’ve gotta love these skilled, hardworking, salt-of-the-earth folks. They do a damn good job.

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