Trump’s Christmas Offensive

I’m not sure when Trump did me in this month. Was it the visit to St. Louis where he blatantly lied about the tax bill, telling gullible citizens how it didn’t benefit him personally at all? Or, was it the Muslim hate videos he retweeted? What surely got me, though, was the Christmas card business.

Yeah, the in-your-face holiday Christmas card in “wealth redistribution” gold made it hard for me to examine the White House pageant any further. (If you’re looking for an insightful take on Melania’s equally obsessive, White House Yule Tide makeover, don’t miss Jia Tolentino’s “With the White House Christmas, the Image of Melania Trump Transforms from Fairy-Tale Prisoner to Wicked Queen.”)

If you were paying any attention at all, the man spent the whole month on a relentless crusade (allusion intended) to remind everyone “Season’s Greetings” or “Happy Holidays” was somehow sacrilegious. The drummer boy never missed an opportunity to remind anyone and everyone (especially at the Roy Moore endorsement rally in Pensacola) that proper respect must be paid to the Christian holiday in our Christian nation with the intonation of those two words.

And, don’t tell me the heavy-handedness was comparable to anything.

Trump’s Christmas card says ‘Merry Christmas,’ Obama’s never did https://t.co/jmPU9YcKoh

— LifeSiteNews.com (@LifeSite) November 29, 2017

Nor did the Bush’s, please. Your tweet is an unfair provocation. Read the link: https://t.co/YNO437dQH1 #Christmas https://t.co/Ja6IhnBy9s

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 29, 2017

The most browbeating time of the year?

In the end, like everything else the ineloquent Trump hammers to death, this too became a parody of itself. Just check out the illustration by Nicolas Ortega that accompanied a NYT op-ed about how Trump weaponized the holiday in the name of the fundamentalist far right. (And don’t miss the singing angel!)

I’m glad they weren’t the only one’s who saw the harping as that insidious.

Our tweet tied the audacity of the Christmas card with Trump’s call out of the anti-Muslim videos. The impact of the iconography at this time of year was unmistakable. And, how much separation is there really between Trump’s rhetoric and a live offensive?

Modern warfare is as much virtual as physical. Converting the long-inclusive @WhiteHouse *holiday* card into a #Christian message, then posting a Brit extremist vid of bearded #Muslims destroying the Virgin Mary statue, Trump has launched a psy-ops style #Christmas offensive. pic.twitter.com/PWUIUJezDd

— Reading The Pictures (@ReadingThePix) November 29, 2017

Perhaps the best and the last word on the subject, though, was offered up in this BBC video, titled: “Should Americans say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays?” It also contains the requisite editing sequence showing Trump mouthing his Christmas rant over and over. After looking into it, what the Brits reveal about Trump’s campaign is that Americans generally feel, to each his own. The video adds that only 55% of Americans will even celebrate Christmas anyway.

— Michael Shaw

(Photo 1: Andrew Harnik/AP. Caption: President Donald Trump points to sign that reads Merry Christmas as he arrives to speak about tax reform at the St. Charles Convention Center, Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2017, in St. Charles, Mo. Photo 2: Joe Raedle/Getty Images. Caption: President Donald Trump walks on stage as he holds a rally at the Pensacola Bay Center on December 8, 2017 in Pensacola, Florida. Mr. Trump was expected to further endorse Alabama Republican Senatorial candidate Roy Moore who is running against Democratic challenger Doug Jones in the adjacent state.)