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<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/thanksgiving-cooking-facts-one-america/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target=_blank>The undeniable reality of cooking</a> in a world of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/economy-consumer-sentiment-thanksgiving/?itid=lk_inline_manual_4" target=_blank>“identity-based” belief</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/shes-the-future-how-does-the-government-keep-her/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5" target=_blank>A young DOJ staffer on what antitrust means</a>

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/kennedy-vaccines-trump-administration/?itid=lk_inline_manual_6" target=_blank>The RFK Jr. playbook for kneecapping vaccines</a>

In these times of alternative facts and political schisms, a bit of relief can be found in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/thanksgiving-cooking-facts-one-america/" target="_blank">simply making mashed potatoes</a>. “To cook is to encounter material truth — the broccoliness of broccoli, the power of heat amplified by oil,” writes Kate Cohen.

For Kate, bewilderment at our national divide fades into the background as she confronts the task — a communal one, in a way — of feeding everyone dinner, as we celebrate a holiday about gratitude. “I’ve always liked the notion — bolstered by grocery store circulars and newspaper inserts and my children’s holiday schedule — that all across America people are preparing a feast of some kind,” she writes. “Not everyone — not everyone can or wants to — but enough of us that when I’m peeling potatoes in my parents’ Virginia kitchen, I feel like I’m communing with someone peeling potatoes in Texas or Maine.”

Speaking of alternative facts, Annie Duke is thinking about how, as this Thanksgiving Day arrives, Democrats and Republicans have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/economy-consumer-sentiment-thanksgiving/" target=_blank>swapped perceptions of the economy</a> from a month ago, even though prices have stayed the same. For Democrats, the present suddenly looks darker; for Republicans, today’s picture has suddenly brightened.

This is thanks to what’s known as an “identity-based model of political belief,” Annie writes. “Study after study finds that people are motivated to view the world in a way that affirms important aspects of their identities.” But, just as Kate says in her piece on the tangibility of cooking, material facts ultimately tend to prevail. “The less accurately we model the objective facts,” Annie writes, “the worse our decisions will be.”

Chaser: Post readers wrote in to tell us <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/22/reader-thanksgiving-recipes-turkey-tradition/" target="_blank">18 key recipes they make every Thanksgiving</a>. Sounds delicious.

Kent Nishimura

<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/impromptu/shes-the-future-how-does-the-government-keep-her/" target=_blank>Now in podcast form</a>! In the final chapter in our much-lauded “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/michael-lewis-conclusion-who-is-government/" target=_blank>Who is government?</a>” series — or as we shorthand it around here, the Avengers series — W. Kamau Bell <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/rookie/" target=_blank>followed his powerhouse goddaughter</a> Olivia Rynberg-Going at her first job out of college, as a paralegal in antitrust at the Justice Department.

Rynberg-Going’s gig turns out to be an excellent portal into the antitrust work of the federal government and why it matters. It’s also a reassurance (a) that the kids are all right, and (b) that the federal government, which <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/25/doge-trump-musk-ramaswamy-letters/" target=_blank>will be going under a cleaver starting in January</a>, serves a lot of crucial functions. Bell also told this story in <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/interactive/2024/rookie/" target=_blank>video and written forms</a>, so pick your poison.

If you love measles, chicken pox, mumps, polio and the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/coronavirus/" target="_blank" class="contextual_link">coronavirus</a>, and in particular if you love watching kids and tiny, too-young-for-shots babies struggle and die from these diseases, you will be thrilled by this Leana Wen column about <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/kennedy-vaccines-trump-administration/" target="_blank">how Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could go about dismantling decades of progress on vaccines</a>.

Otherwise, you might find it a bit depressing, but you might want to read it anyway. Leana adds that there are at least a couple of guardrails that might help keep things on track.

Lee Hockstader takes a look at <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/rutte-trump-nato-united-states/?itid=lk_inline_manual_28" target=_blank>how NATO is bracing for the second Trump administration</a>: “The reality is a sense of panic,” an insider tells him.

Based on the numbers, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/trump-mandate-cabinet-nominees/?itid=lk_inline_manual_29" target=_blank>Donald Trump really doesn’t have much of a mandate</a>, Catherine Rampell argues. But if he does, it’s around one purpose: “to make life cheaper.” Jen Rubin agrees that his mandate is limited — and notes that one place <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/bush-trump-mandate-deportation-immigration/?itid=lk_inline_manual_29" target=_blank>he particularly risks overstepping his support is on deportations</a>.

The Editorial Board argues that, as blue states lose population (and thus congressional seats, and thus political power) to red ones, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/25/democrats-cities-progressives-election-housing-crime/?itid=lk_inline_manual_30" target=_blank>they need to improve life in their own domains</a>, with an immediate infusion of YIMBY energy.

Finally, after all those tributes yesterday, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/26/george-will-fifty-years-washington-post-column/?itid=lk_inline_manual_31" target=_blank>George Will himself speaks</a>, kicking off with a quintessentially Willian lede full of slaps and flourishes: “It is tempting but mistaken to say that the current administration of the universe is defective because people are not required to read op-ed columns. That thought is too adjacent to progressivism, which, a critic has said, does not care what people do as long as it is compulsory. Besides, a smaller readership can be superior to a bigger one.”

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

Have your own newsy haiku? <a href="mailto:amanda.katz@washpost.com?subject=Opinions+Newsletter+Feedback" target=_blank>Email it to me</a>, along with any questions/comments/compliments/concerns. Drew will be back with you tomorrow; I’ll be in the newsletter saddle again on Monday. Until then, safe travels and happy potato peeling to all.

Amanda Katz is a senior assignment editor for Opinions, where she has worked since 2022. She was previously an editor at CNN, the Boston Globe and Bloomsbury Publishing, and has written for the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Slate and other publications.

Amanda Katz

Today’s Opinions: Thanksgiving potatoes are our shared reality

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Opinion This Thanksgiving, we’re just glad we agree on the reality of the potato

Consider the potato