How to Shoehorn the Epstein Files Into Any Thanksgiving Dinner Conversation

Look, we all know Thanksgiving this year is a wash. After a year of relentless anti-immigrant crackdowns throughout the country, and our federal government’s pointed refusal to spend a penny to feed the most vulnerable among us, what use is a set of rituals centered around a myth?

It’s already hard enough to preserve the fiction that the holiday is about honoring the Native Americans who feted and embraced European colonizers, and that we can unite with this Big Lesson about caring and sharing. Equally troubling is the idea that we are just hanging out and eating turkeys and mashed potatoes on our collective day off for no reason at all!

So if you’re going to do Thanksgiving this year, it behooves you to at least sabotage the vibes a little. And as it so happens, portions of the long-awaited Epstein files — the host of emails, reports, and other materials pertaining to influential dead billionaire, political financier, eugenicist, and serial sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein — have been released to the public. The emails place numerous politicians, academics, and elites like Donald Trump, Woody Allen, Noam Chomsky, Peter Thiel, and others firmly in Epstein’s orbit; they also reveal a great deal about how they talked among themselves. Ask your mom what she thinks!

If you’re going to mention the emails, you’ve got to be strategic: Find some ways in. To that end, here are some tips.