The former president is still feeding the Christian right’s persecution complex
In recent campaign stops and on social media, Donald Trump has reprised lies aimed at inciting his Christian-right base against Joe Biden. These tirades, centered on the false charge that the Biden administration is persecuting Christians, aren’t just Trump’s typically dubious claims. Much like Trump’s lies about a stolen election, they are designed to immerse his loyalists in a grievance-laden alternative reality in which Trump alone can rescue them from an evil government threatening their freedom.
In a Dec. 19 speech in Iowa, for example, Trump pledged, “As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians. I don’t know if you feel it. You have a war. There’s a war.” Speaking just after the Colorado Supreme Court disqualified him from appearing on the state’s GOP primary ballot, Trump tied this “war” to his own legal woes. “Under crooked Joe Biden, Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before. And also presidents like never before,” he added. “I always say Al Capone was treated better than I was treated.”
Trump has promoted the theme of Christian persecution in the past, but is elevating it again as these legal issues mount. His clear purpose is to deflect attention from his own criminal liabilities by insinuating that the same Biden administration he falsely claims is unfairly targeting him for prosecution is similarly persecuting religious Americans.
Do you know what “War on Christmas” really means? It means “everyone who isn’t a Christian should either conform to us or get the fuck out of this country because it’s a Christian country.” Which is one of the reasons that all of us who were born here, maybe had ancestors here going back generations, whose only “crime” was not being Christian are regularly made to feel like we’re foreigners in our own homeland. I didn’t celebrate Christmas growing up in religious Indiana. I was treated like shit for it. There’s no war on Christmas. There’s a war against people who don’t celebrate Christmas or even just dare to say they aren’t big fans of Christmas. Enjoy our holiday our way. Or else. That’s the war. And they’re the ones waging it.
We should be allowed, in “the land of the free” to not want to take part in Christmas for any reason be it another religion, psychological issues, it’s too commercial, you think Santa looks stupid, whatever, and not be given shit for it by these MAGA assholes trying to force their theocratic will on all of us.
No. “War on Christians” is a test balloon that went over well in Bumblefuck Anywhere so he’s using it now. It used to be “Mexico will pay for the wall” but now it’s this. Back in the Gee Dubya days there was a news cycle - it’s very specifically pin-pointable, like one week it started; where gays were going to get married and make us all marry gays and oooh bad.
Same shit. Different fear wand. Old, old bullshit. Works every time on ignorant people. Democrats will sometimes try this with actual fears like “they’re going to drive the economy into the ditch” but it never works the same. It’s never got the enough stench of sheer panic and maniacal idiocy when they do it. Also Democrats aren’t as reliably susceptible to it so it’s also kind of pointless there.
Christmas isn’t just for christians. It is also important to the state religion: capitalism.
Hey, we also have the American civil religion
It’s not necessarily that they want to impost Christmas on everyone. Sure that’s a by-product.
What they want is not to feel like their holiday is being attacked. Something as simple as “Happy Holidays” is seen as a threat to their personal beliefs and they feel attacked when people use it. So if you don’t say anything and just say "have a nice day they don’t care. But as soon as you say something triggering like “happy holidays”, they flip out.
Because they feel attacked, they feel justified in forcing others to say Christmas.
Again, fully manufactured rage for the purpose of maintaining what they feel is right.
What’s even better is that Christmas isn’t even a religious holiday (not in the way they think it is). The current version of Santa was created by Coca-Cola in the 30s iirc and Jesus’ birthday would have actually been sometime in the summer or early fall. Basically, Xmas as we know it here is less than a century old and originally had nothing to do with Jesus or any other religious nonsense.
Xmas, Easter and more have been preempted by the catholic church. They were originally pagan holidays based around the seasons, the sun, etc
You’re mixing things up a little. Santa wears red and white because of Coca Cola advertising. He used to wear all kinds of crazy colors. Jesus’s “birthday” is celebrated in December to coincide with winter solstice celebrations that already existed in Roman times. It’s hard to tell when it “should have been”, but there wouldn’t be shepards outside with their flock at night in December. Maybe Spring.
Santa also used to put things like coal in people’s shoes when they left them on the front stoop. Saint Nicholas" colors also vary from country to country. I am specifically talking about the USA here as that is what this is about.
Ye exact details don’t really matter because it’s all history at this point. What matters is that neither xmas or easter or whatever other holiday the church took over, isn’t as old as time and the original version of it was nothing like how we see it now. Basically, the church can get fucked and we should take this shit back.
Who’s with me to start celebrating winter instead of Xmas, fertility instead of when a mythical person supposedly came back to life after being killed for speaking about peace and love? Does any of that sound familiar? Jesus was a got damn hippy, I tell ya hwat.
The shepherd at night is probably a red herring. Shepherds stay out at night during lambing season which is February-April in Europe and North America but November-March in Israel
