APAD: Turkeys voting for Christmas

Meaning:

    People acting in a way that is harmful to their own interests.

 

Background:

   `Like a turkey voting for Christmas' is a phrase that is archetypically

   British and isn't widely used elsewhere. There are several reasons for this:

 

   1. The custom in the UK is to serve turkey as the centrepiece of the

      Christmas meal.

 

      Around 10 million turkeys are eaten at Christmas in the UK and very few at

      any other time of the year. Any turkey with a vote would be wise to vote

      against Christmas.                                                       

                                                                               

   2. The phrase originated in the UK.                                         

      The expression was used, in a slightly different form, by the British    

      Prime Minister James Callaghan in a House of Commons debate in March 1979:                                                                              

                                                                               

        "The minority parties have walked into a trap. If they win, there will

        be a general election. I am told that the current joke going around the

        House is that it is the first time in recorded history that turkeys have

        been known to vote for an early Christmas."                            

        ...                                                                    

                                                                               

   3. Brexit                                                                   

      The expression `turkeys voting for Christmas' has seen a resurgence in   

      recent years following the vote for the UK to leave the European Union.

                                                                               

      Many of those who voted to stay in the EU view the `leavers' as `turkeys

      voting for Christmas'. They see the winning of the `Brexit' vote to leave

      as a disaster for the very people who voted for it.                      

                                                                               

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]                                                  

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In America, the turkey is only smug until Thanksgiving. Now I've learned that in

Britain, it votes for Christmas. Yet Franklin thought it should be the national

bird of the U.S.A.                                                             

                                                                               

Maybe that was his way of reminding the infant nation: know who you are, don't

step out of line, and don't give yourself airs. And maybe educate yourself, be

enlightened, be humble, etc., as the bird would aspire to when it knows itself

as a turkey.