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There Is No War on Christmas
And there never has been
The idea of a War on Christmas may sound laughable, but in the United States we cannot avoid overhearing the complaint of “America’s tragically persecuted Christian super-majority” (to rip off a phrase by J. Daniel Janzen in Flak Magazine years ago). We must pay attention to what the complaint means.
It is antisemitic
Millions of Americans take the “War on Christmas” absolutely seriously. It leads to a form of antisemitism: the targets of the pro-Christmas warriors are Jewish-run businesses.
It is fictitious
For whoever needs to hear it: Christmas is not under siege. The “war” is a deliberate media creation. The righteous response is all an act.
It’s easy to find examples of public Christmas displays. There are, as Jon Stewart noted on his comedy hour “The Daily Show” in 2011, ostentatious Christmas displays all over the country and even in the White House, many of which “are subsidized by — uh, what’s that thing you don’t want to spend on anything? — taxpayer money!”
Christmas. Is. Everywhere.
In 2017, upon the death of Fox News founder Roger Ailes, the Catholic League tweeted: “Roger Ailes did more for America than anyone in television history.” To which journalist Amy Sullivan responded: “Yes, clearly without Ailes, Christmas would have lost the war.” The joke is, at least in part, a reference to the media machine that was then gearing up for its 13th season of “War on Christmas” coverage; if there really had been a 13-year war, surely Christmas would have already lost.
What’s happening, according to the made-up theory
Supposedly there are legions of anti-Christian or hyper-politically-correct people who are out to remove all references to Christmas from the public square. They’re easy to spot: they use the expansive term “holiday” where the more narrowly specific “Christmas” would sound better to good Christians. These pseudo-militants need to be stopped before they succeed in eradicating Christmas altogether.
