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.

1. When it’s time for everyone at the table to go around and say what they’re thankful for, recite an excerpt from the nonsensical free-association email that Epstein wrote as a note to himself. Subject line: “radical breakthrough.” Choices include “plants. communication. surface area. similairy tohumnas. . do we get plant disease. ?” and “taste? food? kissing?”
2. If your dad once again confuses SFGate for the San Francisco Chronicle (or vice versa), you can say, “You know who else confused SFGate for the Chron? Deepak Chopra, the pop-New Age guru who was planning to collaborate with that sicko Epstein on a board game!” 
3. If folks start talking about house prices, feel free to compare them to the $851,344 in overtime paid out to FBI personnel to redact the Epstein files. Example: Your uncle’s $960,000 house in Berkeley equals 1.12 Epstein Transparency Projects!
4. When your auntie mentions your cousin at Harvard for the third time in an hour, you can share the fun fact that his school was mentioned 124 times in the emails Congress released to the public, as both a beneficiary of Epstein’s money and as a hangout and workplace for him and his associates. 
5. Follow up: Ask if said cousin has any inside info on what teacher and former Harvard president Larry Summers is up to these days! Wild how much this guy hates women, huh? And he was on the board of OpenAI until like, last week?
6. Follow up to the follow up: Say “DO NOT REPEAT THIS INSIGHT” with a Larry Summers-like air of undeserved authority after complimenting the cranberry sauce.
7. Any time your sister’s boyfriend conflates wealth with genius, you can point out that billionaire hotel and transport magnate Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem once asked Epstein, “Have you heard of this colestrol” via email. And that the vast majority of the emails by our global elites are written with the intellectual and grammatical rigor of “I can has cheezborger” memes. Embarrassing!
8. If someone asks why you want a 1TB storage drive for the holidays? Well, it’s to help seed the 121GB torrent of Epstein-related recordings, law enforcement files, official releases, and leaked emails with a former Israeli prime minister, of course. It’ll be the gift that keeps on giving, because that’s how torrents work. And then you'll have lots more to talk about at the office holiday party.