Gravy Boat Diplomacy

How to Survive the Holidays

Holiday dinner this year isn’t red vs. blue. It’s broke vs. broker. You’re passing the gravy to a Fox News watching Trump voter while both of you are getting hammered by the same price hikes, the same medical bills, the same feeling that you’re working harder and getting less. Gravy Boat Diplomacy means you park the personality talk and drill down on how Trump’s policies have beaten the hell out of working people without turning it into a shouting match about his fragile ego. Start with and stay with the kitchen table stuff. Instead of “Trump is awful,” try, “Man, groceries are killing us, how bad is it for you?” When they agree, connect the dots, tax cuts that favored the wealthy, union‑busting appointments, and judges who side with bosses over workers did not come from nowhere. Those were Trump's choices that shifted more power and money upstairs while your family is deciding what bill not to pay this month. Talk about how corporations pocketed record profits while wages and benefits lagged behind the cost of living. On health care, skip the slogans and get specific. Ask what their premium, deductible, or prescription costs look like now compared with a few years ago. Then point out how Trump’s people went after the Affordable Care Act, tried to weaken protections for people with pre‑existing conditions, and backed plans that would jack up costs for older and sicker workers. Those moves didn’t hurt “the left” they hurt anyone who punches a clock, blows out a knee, or has a kid with asthma.

With jobs, talk about plants that closed, schedules that got worse, and safety corners cut. Trump talked like a friend of workers while stacking the deck for bosses. The NLRB lacks a quorum so there is nowhere for workers to find justice and his appointments have made ot harder for workers to organize Ask, “Do you feel more job security now than you did before? Did those big promises ever show up in your paycheck?” Make it about the gap between the speeches and the life you’re actually living.

You’re not backing down, you’re punching up. THE GOAL ISN'T TO “WIN” it’s to get everyone looking in the same direction at the people and policies that are bleeding your family dry, not at the neighbor who votes different but is just as tired, broke, and scared as you are.

Gravy Boat gunner