Vice President-elect JD Vance said a lot of things on the campaign trial, much of which understandably infuriated Democrats. Nonetheless, at one of his town halls during the election run-up, he said something that was not much noticed at the time but to which all Americans should pay attention. “If you’re discarding a lifelong friendship because somebody votes for the other team, then you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake and you should do something different,” Vance said. “I’ve got friends who like me personally … who aren’t necessarily going to vote for me. That doesn’t make them bad people. This is my important advice. Whether you vote for me, whether you vote for Donald Trump, whether you vote for Kamala Harris, don’t cast aside family members and lifelong friendships. Politics is not worth it. And if I think if we follow that principle, we will heal the divide in this country.” With all due respect to Vance, and appreciation for one of the few gracious moments in the bitter electoral campaign, we don’t think it will be that simple. The rivalry between America’s two political parties has devolved from differences over economic principles or international policy into deep-seated oppositional stances — a consequence, perhaps, of the decline of religious faith that has acted historically as a restraining, rooting and unifying force, especially during holiday seasons. Even now, some Democrats rail at the media “normalizing” or “platforming” Trump; his winning a small majority of the popular vote did not, in their minds, remotely change the validity of such lines of attack, even though the recent electoral results suggest that those shrill and demonizing arguments were singularly unsuccessful and merit retirement. There is nothing wrong, of course, with preparing to be part of a determined, resourced and successful opposition to policies that many Americans oppose. Nothing whatsoever. And there is nothing wrong with articulating hope for the future Trump administration and supporting its successes. It’s coming, either way. But the most immediate challenge that some Americans will face on Thursday is people around their Thanksgiving table from what Vance euphemistically called the “other team.” One strategy is for the host to ban any and all political talk, to say that comments between bites of turkey will hereby be restricted to the weather, the endless construction on the expressways or sports, although that last named is not without its perils. That’s one way to go. But we suspect that some of the more politically minded of the celebrants then will just fester in their own juices, even as they mop up those on their dinner plate. Better, we think, to impose rules around civility and empathy and the ability to finish a sentence rather than enforce political silence. That way, you might have real conversations. We’ll remind you — as if you needed the reminder — that Donald Trump won the last election and, if the great Ann Landers of this newspaper were still with us, she would be telling you that it always behooves winners not to crow. That means not showing up in a red baseball cap or plunging in the rhetorical knife or indulging in a plethora of told-you-so’s. It’s fair to say that many Democrats were shocked by the result and have yet to recover. The Thanksgiving emissaries of the victors, then, should recall what it felt like to lose and behave accordingly. Which means with grace. At a dinner honoring the six “Outstanding Chicagoans of Today,” boxing champ Muhammad Ali takes a playful poke at sportscaster Howard Cosell, as advice columnist Ann Landers advises them to break it up on Nov. 11, 1977, in Chicago. (Don Casper/Chicago Tribune) Graciousness is not a well-known attribute of the MAGA universe, of course, nor is it widely seen as a chief strength of the president-elect. But Trump does have moments when his better nature prevails, as, for example, on his post-election visit to the White House to confer with President Joe Biden, who also was being most generous, all things considered. We’d also note, without any tacit agenda, that all-Dem dinner tables might have their conflicts, too, given the ways in which bitter Kamala Harris postmortems can spiral, as anyone who listened this week to Dan Pfeiffer’s “Pod Save America” podcast well knows. In this case, centrists need to be the ones showing grace, giving the post-electoral bashing being meted out to the party’s mostly youthful progressive wing who are being widely and unfairly blamed. We suggest everyone stipulates before sitting down that the Harris defeat came from no single cause — that’s certainly our view — and that it is possible to discuss ways forward for Democrats without pointless demonization. At the end of the day, it’s on the candidate, not her supporters. In our business, we’re forever writing about the great divide or chasm or whatever the chosen phrase of the day might be, and it’s become axiomatic by now that Americans are so cleaved down the middle that only the complexity and impracticality of a divorce is holding red and blue America together. Thanksgiving, though, belongs to neither side and abundant feasts serve as a reminder of the country’s bounty. That’s worth remembering and so is the brevity of life within its borders. None of us are here forever and when someone now present whom you love dies, you won’t be remembering their politics. You’ll just feel their loss at the Thanksgiving that follows. Better then, to laugh, eat, drink and live in the moment. And welcome all to your table. Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email [email protected].