On Thanksgiving, Day to Celebrate Coming Together, Trump Vows to Build Wall

Many people might find it jarring on Thursday morning by how President Donald Trump offered the nation a Happy Thanksgiving in the form of a tweet in which he vowed to "build the WALL" designed to keep future refugees and immigrants out of the country. (Cover detail: New Yorker/Christoph Niemann)

On Thanksgiving, Day to Celebrate Coming Together, Trump Vows to Build Wall

"Trump using Thanksgiving to call for his 'WALL,' apparently without irony. Missed the part of the Pilgrims' story where they scale one."

There are many versions of the historic event, endless ways--both personal and political--to interpret its meaning, and books filled with various perspectives and reasons about why and how people should (or should not) celebrate the U.S. holiday known as Thanksgiving.

However, one of the most widely recognized interpretations of the U.S. holiday, is based on the narrative of how early European settlers--many of them fleeing their home countries following religious persecution or otherwise looking for a new and better life--were nurtured from the struggles of living in a harsh new land by the Indigenous people already living on the continent when they arrived.

It is that notion of the holiday, perhaps, why many people might find it jarring on Thursday morning by how President Donald Trump offered the nation a Happy Thanksgiving in the form of a tweet in which he vowed to "build the WALL" designed to keep future refugees and immigrants out of the country.

While many pointed out that his predecessor, Barack Obama, should be the one credited for most of the nation's economic benchmarks in the current moment, others were quick to point out the ugly irony of his mention of the wall:

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