Ranker’s Top 5 Thanksgiving Dinner Topics To Avoid

NOTE: Readers are still voting on this list all the time, and the ranking changes frequently. Changes in the list ranking may not immediately be reflected in this blog.

In business, it’s generally considered a rule of thumb to avoid touchy political topics — you don’t want to take a stance that alienates potential clients, partners, or customers. Every year, a lot of us take a similar approach to the conversations we make with members of our extended, ideologically diverse families during Thanksgiving dinner. Better to avoid politics altogether than to make an offhand comment about the Supreme Court or gun rights that starts a food fight between your conservative great uncle and your liberal second cousin.

But while a lot of avoiding conflict at the Thanksgiving dinner table comes down to common sense (maybe don’t bring up last year’s election), it’s not always easy to predict which topics are off-limits to which people, especially when you’re around family members you don’t see often. An innocent comment about how your hometown neighborhood is “on the up and up” might provoke your niece — how were you supposed to know she felt so passionately about the rising cost of living in this city? Similarly, even the most well-intentioned marketing campaign can run afoul of some audiences, and the risk of offending is larger when you know relatively little about the demographics you’re targeting.

In that spirit, to help you identify touchy subjects to avoid both in your business communications and at the dinner table this holiday season, we’re using Ranker data to explore the political topics Americans feel most passionately about. We took a look at the Top 5 items on our list of The Social Issues You Care About Most (451K votes) and identified which demographics (including age, gender, and geographical region) feel strongest about each. Whether you’re looking to engage millennial consumers living in coastal metropolitan areas or simply avoid the wrath of your baby boomer aunt this Thanksgiving, this info will hopefully make it easier for you to find common ground.

#1: Poverty

As far as political topics go, poverty isn’t very divisive — it isn’t often you run into someone who is “pro” poverty. To that end, if you’re marketing a TV series that deals with themes of poverty and are hoping to reach audiences that are engaged by that topic, you’ll find that a healthy portion of almost every demographic is sympathetic to your messaging. Or, if you’re thinking about suggesting that your family donate the leftovers from your Thanksgiving meal to a food bank, you can rest assured that partisanship in America hasn’t come to the point where your suggestion would be considered controversial.

All that being said, men are more likely to list poverty as an important topic than women, while members of Generation X tend to be more passionate about the topic than the generations above and below them. Meanwhile, those living in the South and Midwest are less likely to put poverty among their top priorities than those living in other parts of the country.

More important to: Men, Gen Xers

Less important to: Baby Boomers, Midwesterners, Southerners

#2: Pollution

Caring for the environment is still a broadly popular position. While you’re likely to run into more division once you get into specifics like the existence of human-made climate change, relatively few people will be turned off by a company striving to avoid harmful practices that pollute the air, sea, and earth. And if you want to complain about the smog in your city at Thanksgiving, your dad probably won’t go on a rant about how pollution is actually good for you.

When it comes to which demographics are most engaged by this topic, your first instinct is probably the right one: the younger you are, the more likely you are to feel strongly about the importance of a clean, safe planet. You’re also more likely to feel strongly about pollution if you live on either coast, whereas those in the rural South are generally more ambivalent.

More important to: West Coasters, East Coasters, Millennials

Less important to: Baby Boomers, Southerners

#3: Education

It’s hard to rile people up with an innocent stance like “the children are our future.” Most Americans recognize the importance of providing kids with an education from kindergarten through high school that prepares them for the job market. Of course, your teenage son may be less passionate about children’s need for a disciplined, structured environment than you are, but neither of you would likely believe that education just isn’t important.

That being said, if you’re looking to market to people who feel that our current education system is lacking, baby boomers are more likely than any other generation to see it as a priority. Those living in the northern Mountain region, which spans from the deserts of New Mexico to the plains of North Dakota, are also more likely to see education as a critical topic.

More important to: Baby Boomers, Mountain Region

Less important to: Southerners, Millennials

#4: Civil Rights

We may associate “civil rights” with the movement that reshaped our society in the 1960s, but more than half a century later, it’s still a huge part of our political discourse. Voting rights, for instance, has become a hot-button issue in America recently. One side of the debate argues that participation in our democracy should be made easier for historically disenfranchised groups like Black Americans and immigrants, while the other side contends that lax rules lead to voter fraud. That’s only one example of how our country is still engaged by the topic of civil tights, which refers to the broad struggle to ensure everyone has equal opportunity to succeed in society.

We can take an upvote for “Civil Rights” to mean that a voter believes there’s inequality in this country that needs to be corrected, while a downvote suggests the voter feels things in the US are more or less equal already. If you’re hoping to draft marketing material that references civil rights, as so many brands did during the widespread protests against police brutality last year, you’ll find female and Midwestern audiences to be most receptive. Civil rights seems to be a more divisive subject on the West Coast, so think twice before assuming your Californian cousin is left of center on the topic.

More important to: Women, Midwesterners

Less important to: West Coasters

#5: Affordable Housing

Affordable housing may seem like a no-brainer at first, but once you suggest solutions that involve taxpayer dollars, it can quickly become controversial. Some feel it’s a travesty that more money isn’t spent by the government on housing for low-income and homeless people, while others insist the solution is better jobs. If you’re advertising a service that rents vacant rooms out to people, you might not want to spend your money reaching those who feel empty space should be used to house people and not turn a profit.

Your average Generation Xer is more likely to care about affordable housing than your average millennial or boomer. On the other hand, if you’re thinking about moving into a new luxury condo, you can feel safer discussing that decision if your dinner table happens to be situated in the Midwest.

More important to: Gen Xers

Less important to: Women, Midwesterners

These stories are crafted using Ranker Insights, which takes over one billion votes cast on Ranker.com and converts them into actionable psychographics about pop culture fans across the world. To learn more about how our Ranker Insights can be customized to serve your business needs, visit insights.ranker.com, or email us at insights@ranker.com.

MORE INSIGHTS LIKE THIS: