Some basic tips for Thanksgiving: Never put mashed potatoes in a food processor or blender because they’ll get gummy; make more gravy even if you think you have enough; do not break bread with people who vote and work against your safety. Since 2016, November bins of frozen turkeys have arrived alongside a crop of advice columns for dealing with contentious relations around the holiday table. How do we avoid talking about politics? How do we find common ground? How can coming together for a meal bring us together as a nation? The one weird trick to get through holiday dinners without conflict is that you don’t have to. You do not have to feed or be fed by people who do not believe in your right to bodily autonomy. You do not have to share the intimacy of a meal with people who are enthused about (or even comfortable with) racist and anti-immigrant policies aimed at people of color. You do not have to perform the rote pantomime of civility with people who vote against LGBTQ folks’ human rights. No magic unity will manifest and pop the right-wing disinformation bubble when you pass the peas to someone who doesn’t think you belong in this country as you are. But it will give comfort and the veneer of normalcy to those who’d harm us or allow us to be harmed. Put a napkin on your lap and get ready to check that cousin if you want to. I get it — sometimes insisting on my right to be somewhere and confronting unacceptable behavior hits the spot like sweet potato pie. If you’re in a position of privilege and/or you’ve got the temperament to call your people in/out, deploy that superpower. (And let me know if you find out how cheap gas has to be to allow these folks to vote for someone who isn’t a rapist.) But the rest of us can start with the bone-deep knowledge that you don’t have to eat with everybody. Then decide if there’s another way to come together with the people who love and lift you, the family who will fight for you and the ones you love. Because the truth is that food won’t bring us together. Not even at Thanksgiving. Not when our civil rights are on the table. Let’s talk turkey tradition. The mythology of Thanksgiving commemorating a joint celebration of…