Conventional Wisdom: Trump Turkey Pardoning Edition

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The president pardoned two turkeys on the White House lawn as part of a tradition that dates back to Abraham Lincoln. CW looks at the pecking order.

White House speechwriter ⬇

An unnamed presidential aide thought it was a good idea to write a wisecrack about Illinois Governor JB Pritzker’s weight into Trump’s remarks at the Turkey pardoning. Trump’s normally well-regulated sense of decency was outraged and he refused the deliver the joke. It was poor consolation that the president, nonetheless, thought the joke was very cute.

JB Pritzker ⬆

When your schoolyard rival declines an opportunity to call you fat, it’s a win. The barrel-framed Pritzker has been losing weight, stirring rumors of 2028 run. Trump, whose reported weight is a hotly contested 224 pounds, even said he could lose a few pounds himself.

Waddle and Gobble ⬆

The two North Carolina turkeys, hardly svelte at 50 and 52 pounds respectively, took no part in the fat shaming and accepted two of the least controversial pardons of Trump’s second term.

Joe Biden ⬇

The former president, whose weight was one of the few unimpeachable attributes of his health, was gratuitously attacked by Trump as sleepy and an improper pardoner of turkeys.

Peach and Blossom ⬅➡

The last turkeys pardoned by Biden were briefly in mortal danger when Trump declared their pardons invalid because his predecessor used an autopen. The president stepped in and gave them a reprieve anyway.

Justin Sun ⬇

The Chinese-born Crypto billionaire and investor in Trump memecoin is the bookmakers’ favorite to receive the president’s next pardon. A Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit against him was dropped and he reportedly had dinner with Trump this year. But Sun still found himself behind Waddle and Gobble in the pecking order.

Originally a staple of Newsweek's print edition, Conventional Wisdom used arrows to track whose stock was rising or falling in the political circus. We're reviving it in the digital age because the problem it lampooned—hyperbole and partisan certainty masquerading as insight—has only intensified.

CW assigns arrows—up, down, or sideways—to the figures and forces shaping current events. The arrows don't predict the future or claim special insight. They capture the prevailing winds of the moment, uncluttered by tribal howling. In an era when partisan media reinforces rather than questions assumptions, CW operates from the center—skeptical of left and right alike, committed to puncturing inflated reputations and recognizing overlooked truths.

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