The Coarsening of the Presidency: How a Thanksgiving Tradition Became a Political Weapon
President Donald Trump used the traditional White House turkey pardon ceremony to level political insults against Democrats, including joking about naming the turkeys after Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and mocking Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. This co-opting of a non-partisan American tradition for crass political attacks represents a profound degradation of presidential decorum and a concerning disregard for the institutions that uphold our civil discourse.





