CNN seems to be staffed almost exclusively with prolific grandstanders and pontificators of a very high caliber. One of their loudest, angriest, and overly dramatic orators is Prime Time host Chris Cuomo. During Tuesday’s edition of the show, he ended the first hour of his program by telling the story of how Thanksgiving got reinvented during times of great hardship and strife in America. According to him, “Thanksgiving is coming, and not a moment too soon” because we’re experiencing one of those times.
“This national day to give thanks was actually designed for times just like those we are living. I'll prove it,” he began his long-winded rant.
Starting with President Trump, Cuomo talked about how Thanksgiving shouldn’t revolve around Trump and was a holiday bigger than one person. “In fact, the designers of the day would insist on that,” he declared. “Yes, it was actually done as an offset, a reminder of gratitude during the worst of times. In fact, especially then.”
You read that right, we’re living during one of America’s worse times. According to Cuomo, the Trump-era was right up there with the struggle of Pilgrims, the Civil War, the Great Depression, and Pearl Harbor. He said as much when he as he went along.
Cuomo looked to the founding of our nation and discovered a time that mirrored our own (click “expand” to read):
President Washington started by calling for a day of public Thanksgiving and praise not to commemorate the pilgrims but to help people then keep perspective in the midst of a particularly tough time of lean crops and illness. When he looked around him and surveyed the distress, he said, “you know what? As bad as it is, we have to give thanks. Look where we are. Look what we escaped. Look how good things still can be.”
The pilgrims were a touchstone. They were a metaphor for perseverance but the message was about those early Americans, seeing the promise of what they were building through their pain. The darker moments of deprivation. To give them some perspective, some promise.
As a reminder, this rant was being delivered under the premise that we’re living during a truly awful and trying period in American history.
“In the military of the Civil War, 1863 during the birth of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln called for a day of thanks during one of the ugliest periods of the Civil War,” Cuomo continued. “He decided to remedy division by ignoring it in favor of the greater goals and common aspirations of all those fighting. He called them all Americans. He barely referred to unionists and rebels.”
He then praised President FDR for reinventing Thanksgiving by signing it into law following Pearl Harbor. “Once again, in a time of national crisis, the worst attack on domestic soil at the time, reeling from the Great Depression, FDR saw the coming of Thanksgiving, a point of national resolve, all of us in it together. The truth greater than the vagaries of the time, even Pearl Harbor,” Cuomo opined.
Cuomo apparently saw himself as one of those great men because he tried to quell the fears of CNN viewers by preaching about how we should celebrate the coming holiday:
The reality that we have much to be thankful for as Americans as one of those interconnected and interdependent in a place and during a time where the best is still yet to come. That's the story of Thanksgiving, and it comes again this year just like it does every year, and it is exactly the right time with what we're dealing with.
“I'm going to include you,” Cuomo announced as though we should all be grateful. “Trolls too because we are all in this together. Thanksgiving is designed and forged from hard fates to remind us of exactly that. The best is still yet to come.”
Gag.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time
November 20, 2018
9:57:14 p.m. EasternCHRIS CUOMO: All right. Thanksgiving is coming, and not a moment too soon. This national day to give thanks was actually designed for times just like those we are living. I'll prove it. Let's start with the current president today, citing the correct message for the coming Thanksgiving.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This is a time for Americans to unite together in a spirit of love, understanding, unity, and joy as one very proud American family.
CUOMO: True. Does he practice what he preaches? Certainly not enough. But that's not the point of this Thursday, nor should the President be the focus. In fact, the designers of the day would insist on that.
Thanksgiving was made to be bigger than anything and anyone. Yes, it was actually done as an offset, a reminder of gratitude during the worst of times. In fact, especially then. The pilgrim references, it's all true. All applies. 1621, the 53 pilgrims, the 90 or so Native Americans. The days of feasting after the first harvest. All true. But that's not what Thursday is really about. Their plight, their coming together with strangers, that is much more metaphor than a true measure of the reason that we celebrate it when and how we do.
President Washington started by calling for a day of public Thanksgiving and praise not to commemorate the pilgrims but to help people then keep perspective in the midst of a particularly tough time of lean crops and illness. When he looked around him and surveyed the distress, he said, “you know what? As bad as it is, we have to give thanks. Look where we are. Look what we escaped. Look how good things still can be.”
The pilgrims were a touchstone. They were a metaphor for perseverance but the message was about those early Americans, seeing the promise of what they were building through their pain. The darker moments of deprivation. To give them some perspective, some promise. But still, it was a one-off. Colonies, then states, they did their own things all through the 1800s. They celebrated Thanksgiving different days, different times, different ways. Then came Abraham Lincoln.
In the military of the Civil War, 1863 during the birth of the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln called for a day of thanks during one of the ugliest periods of the Civil War. He decided to remedy division by ignoring it in favor of the greater goals and common aspirations of all those fighting. He called them all Americans. He barely referred to unionists and rebels. He said, “we should all pause and give thanks for the better days to come and the increasing freedom that was the destiny this land.”
And now here is the delicious and greatly unknown detail. Where did this great man get such a great idea? A woman: Sarah Josepha Hale. For decades, this pioneer in publishing -- she was a publisher when women didn't have the access to the same literature. She wrote stories and essays impressing the importance of the idea of the need for a national day of thanks. All of us, all on the same day, and all of us on the same day in the same way. Why? As a building block of our interconnection, our interdependence, our collective fortune and fate. She even wrote up recipes and rituals to make the day special, like here's how you should do it. She was obsessed. She wrote several different presidents and got nowhere.
Then she wrote Lincoln, and Abraham Lincoln saw the genius in her suggestion. Truly an epiphany. How to deal with the rampant war and bloodshed, the utter despair. Clear indications that no matter who won the war, the nation might be lost. How did he do it? He reminded all those fighting, no matter the side, that together you're going to do more than the way you're doing it right now. And that even in the midst of all this bloodshed -- and it was terrible. It makes what we're dealing with today meaningless. You still should be thankful because there are going to be better days.
What a key. Lincoln spoke as the leader of all, not half. He was the Union commander. He did not call himself that. He was giving thanks as a way not just to recognize blessings but to heal. He wrote, “with one heart and one voice. That's who we are.” And he was right. Days of division. Can you imagine living through those days?
An echo of this perspective. The national holiday still wasn't passed then in 1863. It wasn't until Congress did it in 1941, and, again, think about these dates. Washington in the midst of that early despair. Lincoln in the middle of the Civil War. 1941, we know what was happening there, right? We had just gotten done with the Great Depression, kind of. We still weren't.
The president, FDR signed this into law right after Pearl Harbor. Once again, in a time of national crisis, the worst attack on domestic soil at the time, reeling from the Great Depression, FDR saw the coming of Thanksgiving, a point of national resolve, all of us in it together. The truth greater than the vagaries of the time, even Pearl Harbor.
The reality that we have much to be thankful for as Americans as one of those interconnected and interdependent in a place and during a time where the best is still yet to come. That's the story of Thanksgiving, and it comes again this year just like it does every year, and it is exactly the right time with what we're dealing with.
So me? I'm going to give thanks. I have so many blessings. I'm wildly fortunate. And I'm going to include you. Trolls too because we are all in this together. Thanksgiving is designed and forged from hard fates to remind us of exactly that. The best is still yet to come. Happy Thanksgiving to you, and here's my early Thanksgiving gift: another hour of me!
