As Thanksgiving season is quickly approaching, I find myself at the forefront of an issue that my family has been facing for years: political discussions that ruin holidays. My family can not go to a single dinner without erupting into full out war over politics. It seems that these fights get worse every year. Last year my little nephew was sent to the hospital after Grandpa Bill threw an entire turkey across the table at my uncle and hit my poor nephew instead.

Every Thanksgiving season it feels like the family gets more divided. Politics is beginning to rip my family apart. And I’m not alone. In fact, the New York Times reports that “Nearly one in five voters–19%–said that politics had hurt their friendships or family relationships.” However, this year I have a plan, one that should hopefully keep the peace and allow the family to finish dinner without a hospital visit. 

I am creating a seating chart that will separate the family table based on political opinions. This seating chart will aim to keep the opposites as far away from each other as possible. One end of the seating chart will feature the Democrats and one side should feature the Republicans. A curtain will be draped across the table so there is no interaction between the sides. 

However, I think a better idea is to implement two rooms, the Blue Room and the Red Room. These rooms will cater specifically to the needs of the different political parties. The Blue Room will feature CNN and talks about social justice while the Red Room will feature Fox News and guns, lots of guns. This should hopefully encourage good political discussions with no input from the other side (they are wrong anyway). 

But then I realized, no one has the exact same opinion. There are different subgroups of political parties and everyone disagrees on at least something, even within a party. This is why I am implementing plan Isolation. Everyone will be put into their very own room, which will cater specifically to their own beliefs. They will receive no critique or news from any opposing argument. They will have one and only one news channel that is perfectly catered to them based on their standing on the political spectrum. There will be absolutely no interaction between anyone and this should hopefully ensure there will be no more political arguments.

When Thanksgiving arrived, the house was quiet. Everyone sat in their respective rooms and ate alone, listening to their perfectly catered news channel.

Multiple members of the family were in line to use the restroom when one word led to another. The house descended into chaos: total war. Food flew, windows broke, vulgar language was exchanged. It seemed like everyone was at war with each other. 

Even after all that I had done to divide my family they still fought. In fact, my seating changes only seemed to make them more mad at each other.