By Mathias Risse, Harvard University
The views expressed below are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights or Harvard Kennedy School. These perspectives have been presented to encourage debate on important public policy challenges.
Thanksgiving is a holiday that does not just prompt the question of what we might want to be grateful for personally, but what we might want to be grateful for as citizens or otherwise as participants in society.
Thanksgiving
My goal here is to reclaim Thanksgiving as a politically meaningful rather than mythologically comforting holiday, let alone an occasion for consumption and commercial engagement. Thanksgiving could and should be a profoundly important holiday for civil society, and this might be a good thought to articulate especially in a year characterized by widespread elite failure to stand up for long-standing American values. Much of this is heavy-duty material, but I will end on a lighter note, about turkeys roaming in Cambridge. The little things matter.
Before talking about Thanksgiving 2025, let me begin with what Thanksgiving reveals about the American treatment of Indigenous peoples—a necessary foundation for understanding its political meaning today.
Thanksgiving is a peculiar American holiday. As a non-religious occasion, in principle it speaks to everyone, and the theme of giving thanks holds broad appeal. Thanksgiving is about families and friends spending time together, often leaving Christmas (which is religious and not for everyone) to nuclear families. In typical years, Thanksgiving week is the busiest travel period in the country: people are prepared to cover large distances to be with each other, though for many a good deal of social anxiety accompanies the travels. In any event, through its association with Black Friday (which seems to cover ever more days) the gratitude has long been overshadowed by shopping experiences and the need to secure suitable gifts for the next holiday. Before online shopping increasingly took over, a sobering bit of annual post-Thanksgiving news tended to be about fistfights over a TV stand or a discounted winter coat.
But Thanksgiving is peculiar also at a deeper level. The folklore around it connects it to the beginnings of European settlement in North America, the 1620s. The origins of Thanksgiving lie in encounters between one group of English arrivals known as Pilgrims with the Indigenous Wampanoag in what became Plymouth, Massachusetts. Pilgrims and Wampanoag were friendly enough to sit down together and express gratitude for the harvest, as well as for their alliance. The leader of the Wampanoag was called Massasoit.
When the Pilgrims arrived, they reached a land littered with graves. High double-digit percentages of the Indigenous population (especially among the Massachusett, who lived north of the Wampanoag, in the area where Harvard is located) had perished from European diseases against which they had no protection. This terrible spectacle would recur time and again during the conquest of the Americas: large percentages of Indigenous populations would die from diseases contracted from sporadic encounters years before the intruders would arrive in large numbers. (For the Americas overall, see Charles Mann’s 1491 (2005); for North America, see, e.g., Ned Blackhawk’s The Rediscovery of America (2023).)
Joyous encounters between Pilgrims and Wampanoag turned into deadly conflict within decades as more settlers kept arriving. In the 1670s, a conflict known as King Philip’s war pitted the settlers and an alliance of Indigenous tribes against each other in an all-out effort to kill as many people in the enemy camp as possible. Philip, known to his people as Metacom, was Massasoit’s son. At the end of this devastating war, significant parts of the population on both sides lay slain. Metacom’s family was sold into slavery in Bermuda, and his own severed head was displayed on a pole close to where Massasoit had celebrated with the Pilgrims. (Jill Lepore’s The Name of War (1999) remains a great book to read on this war and its relevance for American history.)
That Thanksgiving became such a big event in the U.S. also seems to be a way of telling the story of the conquest of North America with a certain message. That message is that whatever else came to pass later, the conquest began benignly—and European arrivals tried hard to get along with the locals. This perception of how this country started off might well prevent many Americans from taking a deeper interest in what the genocidal realities of the conquest would actually be over the centuries.
In other words, the very fact that the holiday that anchors the story of America is one of gratitude might be one factor in dissuading people from obtaining a realistic sense of American history.
What to Make of Thanksgiving in Disorienting Times?
I am not actually against Thanksgiving, I hasten to say (whatever it would mean to be against Thanksgiving). It is of course amazing that a holiday that is all about gratitude plays such a role in American life. Gratitude is good all around. Looking at the people around you with an attitude of appreciation and with the question of how to channel it will likely make you focus on the positive aspects of your relationships. It will make you see the good in others.
Cultivating an attitude of wanting to see the good in others also fosters a positivity in one’s own outlook: gratitude is a familiar “happiness strategy” (see e.g., Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness (2008)). And throughout history moral philosophers only ever had good things to say about gratitude. (For philosophy and gratitude, see here.) Grateful people are better people, a country full of grateful people must be better for it, and making such a big deal about gratitude surely can only help with all that. So there.
But that only works if Thanksgiving is not mostly about eating, drinking, travelling, and shopping—or at least if it is not mostly about that every single year. Reflecting a bit on the background of this holiday opens inquiries about American history comprehensively understood. Among other things, such an approach has to mean reading American history as a process of replacing one set of cultures with another, a process of violent conquest that made room for the dreams of millions by shattering the lives of millions of others.
This history cannot be undone. But it is never too late to think about what consequences to draw from it in the present. Knowing more about what happened is a first step. And no other day connects so far back into American history as Thanksgiving. (For an introduction to Indigenous perspectives on American history and beyond, see Ojibwe author Anton Treuer’s Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians but Were Afraid to Ask (2023)).
Among other things, such an approach has to mean reading American history as a process of replacing one set of cultures with another, a process of violent conquest that made room for the dreams of millions by shattering the lives of millions of others.
Once we see this historical background to Thanksgiving, we can also see that it is an intensely political holiday—and not merely in the sense that it is not religious. Thanksgiving is a holiday that does not just prompt the question of what we might want to be grateful for personally, but what we might want to be grateful for as citizens or otherwise as participants in society. That question arises for anyone anywhere, but I am raising it mostly with an eye on the United States, given the occasion.
In 2025, that question is really not easy to answer in the U.S. I have recently argued that we live in times that are deeply disorienting to many, and that the nature of this disorientation is a style of politics characterized by gaslighting and vindictive tolerance. “Gaslighting” here I understand as a leadership style whose essence it is to provide guidance by accusing opponents of violating norms and undermining values that in fact one is violating or undermining oneself. (See also here.)
"Vindictive tolerance" characterizes how an entire political system functions. It is a system that those in charge want to portray as tolerant and committed to values like democracy, human rights, freedom of the press, and rule of law. But the tolerance is vindictive because political opponents within the system are not actually tolerated but attacked as enemies of the system. (See also here.)
So: given that we live in disorienting times, what might we be grateful for as citizens and participants in society? I would like to submit a civil society answer to this question that comes in three parts.
First, we have reason to be grateful to the many individuals who, from within civil society, stand up for the core values of free societies. It is often not those in power who make sure that free societies survive—that human rights, democratic values, freedom of the press, the basic commitments of tolerance survive—but activists, journalists, community or union organizers, writers, local politicians, teachers, and lawyers who risk a lot to stand up for these values. Here one could talk about any number of people from around the world, and one could mention a lot of Americans. I use as my example Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was assassinated by agents of the Saudi government in October 2018, and I discuss him for two reasons.
To begin with, the heavily dismissive treatment Khashoggi’s memory received at the hands of President Trump during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to the White House on November 18 makes Khashoggi’s case an excellent one to discuss on the occasion of American Thanksgiving. (Also see here and here.)
Another reason it behooves us to talk about his assassination is that just two days after the Crown Prince’s visit, Trump labeled several Democrats in Congress as traitors whose behavior was punishable by death. Their offense was to admonish the military not to follow unlawful orders. (Also see here.) Trump supporters will doubtless say he was joking or teasing. But Trump’s statement is striking and profoundly unsettling—as is its timing. Claims that he was joking or teasing help normalize the decline of our political culture.
Second, we have reason to be grateful for the existence of political movements (and to the many individuals who make up the movement) that advance the values of free societies. My example here is the American No Kings movement. Movements typically need some kind of leadership, but what makes them movements is that many people come together and do their part. It can be problematic to draw inspiration from individual leadership figures because individuals inevitably are flawed in some ways, no matter how accomplished and inspirational they are in others. We should not put anyone on a pedestal. Movements matter because they are so much bigger than anyone in a leadership role.
Third, we also have reason to be grateful for the lasting presence of certain ideas in our political history (and to the individuals that carry them forward in theory or practice) that sustain free societies. My example is the idea of equality as originally formulated in the American Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate next year. Among other places, this idea has a contemporary presence in ideas around diversity, equity, and inclusion that have fallen from political favor under the current administration—but that are deeply embedded in the political history of the U.S.
By drawing attention to Khashoggi I wish to express the profound gratitude we owe to specific individuals like him who are willing to risk everything so that the rest of us can live in free societies. But by then also drawing attention to movements and ideas I mean to qualify the importance of individuals when it comes to finding orientation in disorienting times. To clarify: We owe gratitude to individuals; we feel gratitude for movements and ideas—Thanksgiving is capacious enough for both types of appreciation. And both types of appreciation are very much called for, especially in a year that has seen so much failure in the willingness of American “elites” to stand up against authoritarian tendencies. (See e.g., here and here and here.)
We all can be part of movements and carry forward ideas, no matter in how small a way. One thing to be grateful for on Thanksgiving is that the world works that way, and thus allows each of us to find our place in it—in movements, and in the perpetuation of ideas that sustain free societies.
Reasons to be Grateful: Civil Society Actors like Jamal Khashoggi
Khashoggi was a journalist who paid the ultimate price for his commitment to freedom of expression and democratic values. After years as a Saudi insider and newspaper editor, Khashoggi became increasingly critical of Crown Prince Mohammed's authoritarian turn. He went into self-imposed exile in the U.S., writing columns for the Washington Post advocating for press freedom, political reform, and human rights in the Arab world.
In October 2018, Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork for his upcoming marriage—and never reemerged. Saudi agents murdered and dismembered him inside the consulate in what U.S. intelligence concluded was an operation approved at the highest levels of the Saudi government. (On all this, see Jonathan Rugman, The Killing in the Consulate (2020). Also see here and here and here.)
What makes Khashoggi a fitting focus for gratitude is not just his courage, but what his life represented: the willingness of individuals to speak truth to power even when the costs are profound.
What makes Khashoggi a fitting focus for gratitude is not just his courage, but what his life represented: the willingness of individuals to speak truth to power even when the costs are profound. He knew the risks. He had seen other dissidents silenced. Yet he continued to write, to advocate, to imagine a freer future for his country and region.
In disorienting times, when authoritarian leaders globally are emboldened and democratic norms are under pressure, individuals like Khashoggi remind us that free societies depend on people willing to take personal risks to defend them.
The recent rough treatment Khashoggi's memory has received from President Trump—who has consistently downplayed the Saudi government's responsibility and prioritized his relationship with the Crown Prince over accountability for the murder—makes this gratitude all the more important to express. Trump could have opted to not engage with the issue; instead, he responded to a question about Khashoggi that "a lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about. Whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen."
Just imagine for a moment how the public in any other democratic country would have reacted if any of their leaders had spoken like this.
When those in power seek to minimize or erase the significance of such acts of courage, civil society must remember and honor them. This is not mere sentiment; it is a way of affirming the values that make free societies possible.
This gratitude is consistent with, not naïve about, international politics. As the late distinguished international relations scholar Joseph Nye used to say, there is a reason foreign policy is not the same as human rights policy. Saudi Arabia has long been an important strategic ally to the United States; it is an economically and politically significant country for many of the major challenges of the 21st century; and it has undergone considerable changes under the Crown Prince’s Agenda 2030 in recent times. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is a leader with many sides.
I would also like to note that in my many interactions with students and visitors from Saudi Arabia over the years I have found that they can articulate and defend the virtues of their system of government much better than Americans typically can vis-à-vis theirs.
But none of this should make us forget about Jamal Khashoggi and the risks he was willing to take. None of this should prevent us from expressing gratitude to Khashoggi on a day when gratitude is the theme. And to repeat, Khashoggi is one of many civil-society actors who have taken on risks of this magnitude. Without people like him free societies would have no future.
Reasons to be Grateful: Social Movements like the No Kings Movement
The No Kings movement emerged in response to growing concerns about executive overreach, presidential immunity claims, the erosion of checks and balances in American government, and the failure of American elites to stand up for the values this country has officially endorsed for 250 years. On their most recent day of protests, on October 18 this year, an estimated 7 million Americans mobilized peacefully across the country to protest against the Trump administration. (Also see here.) In approximately 2,700 locations, people participated in rallies, setting a new record for a single-day U.S. protest.
Seven million means that distinctly more than 2% of the American population participated. For a social movement, this is a huge number. Historical evidence shows that protests at the 3.5%-level tend to have considerable political implications. A useful rule of thumb: when 3.5% of the population takes to the streets, just about everyone knows someone whose grievances are large enough to take them to the street, which spreads word of the discontents through the whole population.
In response to the protests on October 18, President Trump shared a video depicting him in a fighter jet dropping what appeared to be feces on U.S. protesters. (Also see here.) This speaks for itself—and likely helped the movement.
While it has organizational leadership, No Kings is fundamentally a grassroots movement comprising thousands of citizens working to defend constitutional principles against authoritarian tendencies. The movement takes its name from the foundational American rejection of monarchy and arbitrary power—the very principle that animated the Revolution and the Constitution's careful distribution of powers. (For earlier activities around Patriots’ Day in New England, see here. For the No Kings movement in the context of their protests on June 14, see here.)
Movements like No Kings serve several vital functions in disorienting times. They provide clarity about core principles when gaslighting creates confusion. They offer solidarity and community when vindictive tolerance seeks to isolate opponents. They translate abstract values into concrete action when elites fail to show up. And they signal that citizens are willing to stand up for their democracy while those who hold power and prestige are thinking about how to get more of both.
What makes movements particularly worthy of gratitude is that they demonstrate the collective power of citizens to resist authoritarian drift. Individuals like Khashoggi inspire through their courage, but movements show that ordinary people, acting together, can shift political reality. They make it possible for people who are not heroes, who cannot or do not want to risk everything, to still play a meaningful part in defending free societies. Free societies cannot depend only on exceptional individuals willing to become martyrs. They need structures that allow ordinary citizens to contribute meaningfully to their preservation.
To be sure: We do not yet know how things will continue for No Kings, and what difference such movements will ultimately make. Nonetheless, Thanksgiving is as good an occasion as any to recognize their current role in American society. Being grateful for such movements means recognizing that democracy is not a gift given once and preserved automatically, but an ongoing project that requires active participation and defense.
Reasons to be Grateful: Ideas like Equality
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." These words from the Declaration of Independence, whose 250th anniversary we celebrate in 2026, have echoed throughout history with extraordinary power—even as, or perhaps especially because, their promise has been so imperfectly realized. (On the anniversary, also see here and here.)
The idea of equality as originally formulated in 1776 was profoundly limited: it did not include women, enslaved people, Indigenous peoples, or those without property. But the idea contained within it the seeds of its own expansion. Once you assert that equality is self-evident and based on shared humanity rather than particular characteristics, you open the door to asking why any humans are excluded.
Equality is the first value that gets mentioned in the Declaration… And if the Declaration is the first genuinely American document, then literally nothing American is older than this articulation of non-domination as a value.
What does the Declaration mean by equality? With just a little textual investigation we can see that the only meaning provided is an understanding of equality as non-domination. (I am following here Danielle Allen’s Our Declaration (2014).) Equality is the first value that gets mentioned in the Declaration. Therefore non-domination is the value the Declaration champions before it does anything else. And if the Declaration is the first genuinely American document, then literally nothing American is older than this articulation of non-domination as a value.
This is why we should be grateful that this idea has remained alive in American political discourse, even when—especially when—it is under attack. Today, ideas around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) represent a contemporary expression of this commitment to equality. These frameworks have attempted to address the gap between the Declaration's promise and its historical reality by actively working to include those who have been marginalized, to get closer to genuine equality of opportunity, and to recognize that formal equality often masks substantive inequality. These frameworks have never been perfect. Still, they represent sustained efforts to come to a better place in a struggle that has shaped American history.
The current American administration has declared war on DEI initiatives, framing them as divisive, as reverse discrimination, as violations of meritocracy—and even as civil or human rights violations. (See e.g., here and here and here.) This is a textbook example of gaslighting: attacking efforts to realize equality in the name of defending equality. It is vindictive tolerance: claiming to defend a tolerant system while punishing those who point out its failures to live up to its stated values.
In such moments, being grateful for the idea of equality means refusing to let it be hollowed out or weaponized against itself. It means recognizing that the work of making equality real is never finished, that each generation must interpret and apply it in their own context. It means understanding that being grateful for an idea requires us to be among those who carry it forward, who give it meaning through practice, who defend it against those who would limit its application.
Being grateful for the idea of equality also means being honest about history. The document that proclaimed equality was written by slaveholders. The same nation that celebrated freedom engaged in genocide against Indigenous peoples. (See here for the California Genocide.) This is not a reason to abandon the idea, but to take it more seriously—to recognize that the work of equality is not about celebrating a finished achievement but about committing to an ongoing struggle.
As we approach the 250th anniversary of the Declaration, this might be the most important gratitude to cultivate: not a complacent gratitude for past achievements, but an active gratitude that obligates us to continue the work, to expand the circle of who is included in "all men are created equal," to make real in practice what has been asserted in principle.
Ending on a Lighter Note, on Turkeys in Cambridge
Let me end on a lighter note. It comes as a surprise to many people that turkeys—mostly known for their central role at Thanksgiving—are still wild animals in New England. They roam freely in Boston suburbs. A group of them also has long lived at the busy stretch of Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge. “Mass Ave” is a major traffic artery in Boston and several cities and towns northwest of Boston. When I walk to work, as I often do, I pass from Porter Square at the border to Somerville down Mass Ave toward Harvard Square. That is where they hang out.
You can spot their presence from a distance since they cause particular disturbances. People not from the area stop and stare and take photos. Turkeys cross over the busy street as they please. Once you are used to that, you can also tell from several blocks away why cars behave in certain odd ways—they are navigating the traffic challenges caused by these turkeys who do not seem to be bothered by the cars at all.
And sometimes they do funny things. One side street of Mass Ave close to the Cambridge Common is used by buses but also by police cars and emergency vehicles who lie in waiting for their next dispatch. Some weeks ago one of the emergency technicians became a major draw for some turkeys, apparently without having done anything to attract their attention. They were peaceful but also unwilling to let him bring too much distance between them and himself. I am sure it all got resolved amicably.
Happy Thanksgiving 2025!
Larry D Crain | Adobe Stock
