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- Holiday gatherings may become contentious with political debates among family members.
- Social media highlights Republican Party disputes and unexpected conservative figures like Nicki Minaj.
- Avoid discussing controversial topics like Trump 2028 or recent political events during celebrations.
SALT LAKE CITY — As families gather around holiday feasts to celebrate the end of one year and the beginning of the next, let us not forget: 'Tis the season to be jolly, not pessimistic.
Over the past week, Americans got a preview of precisely what they hope to avoid at family gatherings, as four days of social media captured the public unraveling of relationships among the Republican Party's most influential figures.
Maybe don't ask your conservative uncle which side of the Shapiro vs. Carlson vs. Owens vs. Kelly dispute they're on. Let that wound heal a little while longer.
If you are going to bring up Turning Point USA's America Fest, bring up the obvious shock that wasn't on anyone's 2025 bingo card ... rapper Nicki Minaj becoming the poster child for conservatives.
The Trump 2028 question may be poor dinner-table etiquette, but nothing is guaranteed to widen eyes faster than asking how people feel about a hypothetical Vance–Minaj ticket.
While on the topic of the Trump administration, it's probably best to avoid mentioning the federal agency Trump dismantled earlier this year that your cousin worked for. And no, your vegetarian aunt didn't enjoy the "Schumer-shutdown of '25," and don't call it that.
The meme battle in the legislative branch that broke out at midnight on Oct. 1 became a warped cultural war with sombreros and mariachi music ... and fat JD Vance? Families went weeks without paychecks, so before you bring your Venn diagram comparing ways the right or left were funnier, come back to reality and let it go.
And though politicians appear to be using the magic of the holidays to platform their agendas (like the Department of Homeland Security's Kristi Noem using Christmas to announce an increase in financial compensation to immigrants living in the country illegally who self-deport) don't stoop to that level.
Removing baby Jesus from the Nativity — or zip-tying his arms together because he would supposedly be deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is not sending the moral message you think it is.
And nobody, and I mean nobody, on either side of the political aisle has the upper hand in the topic of the newly released Jeffrey Epstein files. So before you shove the photo of Bill Clinton to your feminist, Hillary-admiring-cousin, know she can pull up a photo of the disgraced financier looking chummy with Steve Bannon just as quickly.
Bah humbug.
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Emma Pitts
