This Thanksgiving, we are not just celebrating a holiday. We are revisiting a turning point in American history that still teaches us something in 2025: gratitude without responsibility collapses, and responsibility without freedom cannot stand.
Most people know the popular version of Thanksgiving. Pilgrims, a feast, a moment of peace. What is less known, but widely accepted by modern historians across the spectrum, is that the early Plymouth colony nearly starved because of a failed communal system. Everyone worked for the common storehouse, and like every historical example of the tragedy of the commons, output dropped, incentives faded, and resentment set in. This is not political spin. It is taught in United States history survey courses for exactly that reason.
The Pilgrims did not choose that arrangement for ideological reasons. Londons investors forced it on them as a condition of the voyage. But after repeated shortages and a brutal winter, Governor William Bradford made a change that saved the colony. Families were assigned plots of land with the right to keep what they produced. Productivity surged. For the first time, the settlement was not fighting for survival.
Historians also remind us of something important. The famous first Thanksgiving of 1621 actually took place before the communal system fully collapsed, and the real boom harvest the result of that property reform came in 1623. That context does not undermine the lesson. It simply gives the story the depth it deserves.
Here is the bottom line the Craig Bushon Show wants every American to hear:
Responsibility works.
Ownership works.
Accountability works.
And freedom paired with duty has been Americas formula from the beginning.
That is not ideology. That is history.
So this Thanksgiving, as families gather in a country wrestling with division, media noise, and political fatigue, we remember the lesson the Pilgrims learned the hard way. A society survives when individuals step up, take ownership of what is theirs, and contribute to something bigger than themselves.
From all of us at the Craig Bushon Show media team, we wish you a meaningful and grounded Thanksgiving.
