Thanksgiving Quick Hits

Comments Section: We are thankful for you, dearest Sweep reader. The comments on the website each week inspire me to be better, think more deeply, and question everything. In politics, it’s often seen as cool to be cynical. It reminds me of those kids in high school who would brag about how ignorant they were of, you know, math. But there’s no excuse for it in politics. 

If you ever get the chance, go to the Lincoln Memorial when you’re in town. Walk inside. Look around. Somewhere between the Gettysburg Address and the Second Inaugural, you will inevitably see a family—even late at night. They could have gone to Disney World or the Mall of America. But instead, they spent their time and money to come to their nation’s capital so that they could pass on this legacy to their children—its imperfections, its triumphs. 

In America, skepticism is our birthright. But cynicism should be roundly mocked by those who truly understand our undertaking. And that is why I am so thankful that we can come together each week with a shared skepticism—built on reverence for the American experiment. 

To Heal and to Restore: Speaking of President Lincoln, he issued his proclamation of Thanksgiving in October 1863. The Civil War raged on. In a few weeks, he would deliver his speech at the dedication of the cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. In that address, he described the war as a test—to determine whether any nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” could endure. The task before them, as he saw it, was to ensure “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.”