I spend every day reading the news and then writing about it. Since COVID landed on America's shores, that's been a rather depressing task. Lockdowns, masks, election chicanery, Biden and Harris, Afghanistan, inflation, Critical Race Theory, rising fuel prices, transgender madness.... The list of negative things seems endless. And yet there is still so much for which we should be thankful I thought I'd take Thanksgiving as a day to write about things that I see as blessings, rather than things that depress me.

At a personal level, I'm blessed with a wonderful family, good friends, a happy community, and good health. If that were all I had for which to be thankful, it would be enough.

Still, at a personal level, I'm blessed to be working at American Thinker.  Thomas Lifson is a visionary who understood early on that conservatives with things to say needed an outlet with editors who can help bring their ideas to the public.  He's also an extremely nice man whom I've had the pleasure of calling a friend for over 15 years.  The other editors at American Thinker — Monica Showalter, J.R. Dunn, and Drew Belsky — are also lovely people, and I consider myself fortunate that I can work with them.

Casting my net wider, beyond the personal, I still believe that, despite its travails, America is the best place on Earth.  I've traveled fairly extensively in Europe and Asia over the years.  During my travels, I've seen beautiful, even wondrous, things, both man-made and natural, and met good and interesting people everywhere.  Still, after every trip, I'm always so happy to return home, not just because I missed my creature comforts and my dogs, but because Americans are the best people in the world: friendly, optimistic, generous, helpful, energetic, and creative.  They have a dynamism that's just missing in the older worlds overseas. 

Image: Uncle Sam's Thanksgiving Dinner (1869) by Thomas Nast.

I'm grateful that we had four years of Trump's presidency, not just because he tried darn hard to make a difference, but also because his presidency revealed the rot that is American leftism.  I grew up as a Kennedy-style Democrat because that's what my parents were.  That Democrat party is dead and gone.  In its place, we have a hardcore leftist party that, having failed to convince Americans, who believed in economic mobility, that economic socialism is a good thing, fell back upon racial division, victim theory, COVID, and climate change to break America apart and panic her citizens sufficiently that they'd abandon their liberty.

And in that same vein, although it's a stretch, I'm kind of grateful for...Biden and Harris.  Trump's presidency revealed how ugly and angry leftists are, and that they are willing to do anything for power.  But it's Biden and Harris, with their polls at 38% and 28%, who have shown the American people that the problem in D.C. wasn't Trump.  It was never Trump.  The problem is that leftists are incompetent, tyrannical, hate-filled, anti-American, and deeply divisive.  Dr. Jekyll's kind face is gone, and we can finally see that the left has always been Mr. Hyde.  That clarity is useful.

There are lots more things for which I'm grateful, but I won't bore you with them.  I have for many years almost aggressively cultivated an "attitude of gratitude."  I've got only one shot at this life, and it's up to me to view it as a blessing and to make those people whose lives intersect with mine, whether for a fleeting moment at a grocery store checkout or for longer intervals (family and friends), find that time pleasurable, not boring or sad.

Oh, wait!  There is one more thing. I'm grateful for the people I've gotten to know during the two years I've been here at American Thinker.  I am the front line for email here, and, while we occasionally get someone too angry to be civil, 99.99% of the emails I receive are from people who want to share an interesting idea, have a little conversation, or just say thank you for something they read.  Because of the volume of emails I receive, I cannot respond to anyone at length, but I always value these contacts and feel that I've made many friends.

So, thank you to all of you who are among the blessings I'm counting for this Thanksgiving 2021.