In this age of anti-vaxxer disinformation, Trump’s Big Lie, and QAnon conspiracies, it is still surprising that a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that nearly 4 in 10 Americans actually believe there is a War on Christmas. "Trump made this his centerpiece claim in the 2020 campaign, and in 2018, he declared victory on the war on Christmas," said Dan Cassino, executive director of the FDU Poll. "This is the highest we've ever seen it. The big shift is due in part by Trump supporters."
Last week, a mentally disturbed man set fire to the Fox News Christmas tree. The perpetrator was immediately caught, and the fire was put out. The fire led to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson declaring that “Torching Christmas trees,” Tucker Carlson said, “is an attack on Christianity.”
As New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait wrote: “Having deemed the attack a ‘hate crime,’ [Carlson] proceeded to reveal a shocking fact: The Biden Justice Department has no statistics to tabulate the number of Christmas-tree burnings that occur in the United States. ‘The DOJ can tell you precisely how many Qurans were burned in the United States last year, but they don’t keep track of Christmas trees,’ he complained. ‘Why is that? Well, because they could care less.’”
Think the War on Christmas ended when Bill O’Reilly, the disgraced former Fox News Channel host, declared victory in 2016? Think it ended when former President Donald Trump told Americans that it was now safe again to say Merry Christmas? Think again!
As Chait reported, “The lawyer and self-styled intellectual Hugh Hewitt earnestly told Trump in an interview this week that he had been ‘the best president for Christmas. He saved Christmas,’ prompting Trump to repeat his boast that he had indeed preserved the holiday from extinction (‘You know, when I was running, 2016, Christmas was, like, you couldn’t say the word,’ he said. ‘I said the word. And I said we’re going to bring back Christmas, and we’re going to be saying ‘Christmas’”).
In addition to Christmas tree fire-lighters, folks at the Fox News Channel have found other villains in their annual re-play of the “War on Christmas”: President Joe Biden’s sloppy handling of the supply chain; and Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose warning about Christmas gatherings has brought down the network’s hammer.
“Now that we’ve left Afghanistan, the War on Christmas is the longest-running war in American history,” The Bulwark’s Jim Swift recently wrote. “Though a war, technically, needs two sides,” he added, “and this one is really only being fought by social conservatives searching for an enemy.” While I thoroughly enjoy Swift’s lede, it’s not quite accurate, in that an actual war on Christmas – not the myth we’ve been dealing with for almost two decades -- began with the arrival of the Puritans in the 17th century.
As The Daily Mississippian’s Hal Fox recently explained: The modern “war on Christmas is the idea that atheist liberals, Muslims, the political and financial elite and (depending on whom you ask) the devil himself are all conspiring to make the United States a nation of anti-Christians by tearing down references to Christ in government buildings and coffee cups alike.”
The war on Christmas, however, goes back centuries, although its most fervid battles have occurred over the past fifteen to twenty years.
[For a brief history of the War on Christmas, from the Puritans to Henry Ford, from the John Birch Society to Jerry Falwell, from Fox News to the American Family Association, from Bill O’Reilly to Donald Trump, see “A Brief History of the War on Christmas” @ https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/7/2068014/-A-Brief-History-of-the-War-on-Christmas.]
“The war on Christmas is a central example of how divided our culture has become,” Fairleigh Dickinson University Cassino said. “Republicans and Democrats are living in two different worlds, seeing different threats, so it’s no surprise they have trouble agreeing on just about anything.”