The Dow hits 30,000 as covid cases spike and long lines form at food banks.
Our fragmented America prepares for Thanksgiving in topsy-turvy times. As the country is whiplashed by Trump's subversion of American democracy and Joe Biden's forging ahead to form his administration, we turn to vestiges of what used to pass for a normal America: football, Grammy nominations, TV holiday specials, the rising stock market. Yet the pandemic and political stalemate overshadow all.
As health experts advise reduced Thanksgiving gatherings, Americans appear determined to celebrate the holiday, packing airports. Yet, many have canceled plans to join friends and loved ones for traditional feasts.
In the midst of the Civil War, President Lincoln issued his Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1863, about a month before delivering his Gettysburg Address.
Lincoln in his Thanksgiving message asked Americans to thank God for their blessings and "commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union."
Those words ring as true in these times of pandemic and political divisiveness as they did in the Civil War.
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