Leftist Publication Generates Backlash After Anti-Thanksgiving Essay

The far-left magazine The Nation used the Thanksgiving holiday to publish a sweeping rebuke of early American history, portraying the Pilgrims and Puritans as “radical Protestant doomsday groups” whose “cultish” ideology it claims shaped the foundations of the United States.

In a featured essay titled “The Pilgrims Were Doomsday Cultists,” author Amanda Montell argues that the settlers who arrived aboard the Mayflower and later Puritan ships were “high-control” religious extremists, contending that “if they were around today, most Americans would identify them as cults.”

Montell asserts the Pilgrims were not fleeing religious persecution — pointing to their years in Holland — but instead left Europe to establish “a theocracy in the Americas” where they could impose strict cultural and theological control. She characterizes them as “Hot Protestants” who believed the apocalypse was near and says this apocalyptic worldview drove harsh enforcement of social and religious norms.

Depictions of Early New England as a “High-Control Society”

Montell’s essay describes early New England governance as a system designed to monitor “behavior, thoughts, and information intake,” enforced through public pressure, punishment, and fear of damnation. She highlights historical instances of punishments — from brandings to whippings — for infractions such as gossiping or skipping church, portraying them as evidence of a rigid, punitive culture.

She further asserts that the psychological burden of such an environment led to “melancholy, pathological abnormalities, nervous breakdowns, suicide, and insanity” in later generations — claims she attributes to unnamed scholars.

Montell argues that the Pilgrims and Puritans were only elevated to central figures in the nation’s founding story in the 19th century, when the United States sought an origin narrative “separate” from slavery and embraced the Thanksgiving mythos to fill that need.

Thanksgiving Framed as a “Political Reckoning”

Montell concludes by urging Americans to treat Thanksgiving not as a unifying tradition but as an occasion to confront what she calls the country’s “radical cultish origins.” She argues that the settlers’ worldview created a legacy of “anti-intellectualism,” reverence for wealth, susceptibility to charismatic leaders, and an enduring obsession with moral purity — traits she claims contribute to modern extremism and political division.

“Americans today often wonder ‘how we got here’ as a nation,” she writes. “My answer: the Mayflower and Arabella.”

She expands her critique to American governance, arguing for a significant expansion of government guarantees — including universal healthcare, shelter, food, and social security — as necessary to counter what she calls the “extremism ravaging America.”

The Nation Pushes Political Reinterpretation of Holiday

The Nation paired Montell’s essay with a second Thanksgiving-day feature titled “Make Thanksgiving Radical Again,” which argues that the holiday’s “true roots” lie not in 1621 but in 19th-century abolitionist activism. The piece urges readers to “reconnect” the holiday to an explicitly ideological framework centered on “anti-racism, liberation, and resistance.”

The outlet has taken similar positions in previous years, publishing essays debating whether Americans should “abolish” or “decolonize” Thanksgiving — including one suggesting citizens should “give thanks by giving land back.”

The dual releases mark The Nation’s latest effort to reframe the national holiday through a political and ideological lens, challenging long-standing cultural and historical narratives.

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