Trump.45 has been on and on about the loss of Christmas to Christians engineered by evil forces for years now. He has repeatedly applauded himself for single-handedly having vanquished the trend and banishing Satan’s anti Christmas forces (not to mention Muslims and illegal immigrants), most recently in his Christmas 2017 video message on Twitter.
Watch the YouTube Version Here:
This gem follows heaps of praise showered upon the Great Leader from the end of November roll out of White House Christmas decorations, starring Melania, Barron, and some beautiful photo ops in the nation’s House.
Sadly, all those taxpayer funded surroundings are essentially shuttered as of Friday December 22, 2017 while the President, all his family, and the dearest of his advisors flee the White House to indulge their private country club dreams at the rococo palace that is Mar-a-Lago, with no connection to the American Christmas soul.
Yes, the White House might still be open for tours with the lights turned low, but the cameras are gone, and the air is silent. Trump.45 has again ducked out to his private pleasure palace in Florida to spend his personal time in more grandiose circumstances with only quality people who can afford the admission fees, and to enjoy his celebratory wallow in the gluttonously fatty tax-cut pork he has bestowed on his kindred kind.
Trump’s Christmas Triumph narrative of 2017 has been celebrated by Fox News, and amplified by the usual suspects, such as Tony Perkins.
Unfortunately for all of them, this latest Trump.45 self-patting on the back is just one more tired example of Trump’s misappropriation, credit claim jumping, and general venality.
The War On Christmas (circa 2006)
To wit: the so-called War on Christmas is a Bill O’Reilly invention from about 10 years ago. Just one year ago in December (2016), O’Reilly himself declared the war over and victory secured for all Americans. Even assuming there ever actually was a War on Christmas, it ended before Trump.45 was President, and the Good (GOD) Guys have already won. Battle Won, and Done. Yeah, it’s on tape on the beloved Fox video machines.
O’Reilly declared victory just a few short months (April 2017) before his own sorry ass was kicked off said Fox Network, by Fox Management, for engaging in highly un- Christian, anti Ten Commandments type violations, like bad sexual stuff.
Kind of like the unresolved charges against Trump.45, who also went out of his way to comfort and defend his old friend Bill in the maelstrom two weeks before he was canned.
Speaking in the Oval Office, Donald J. Trump praised Mr. O’Reilly as “a good person” and declared, “I don’t think Bill did anything wrong,” days after The New York Times reported that five women had received settlements after making harassment claims against him.
A Minor Point of Clarification on the War
As a minor point, the thrust of O’Reilly’s complaint was about punishing companies that refused to say Merry Christmas in their holiday season’s greetings. Now here’s my question. Since when do red blooded Americans, Christians, polyglots, agnostics, and others, give a rat’s ass whether this company or that company celebrates a Merry Christmas?
Christmas is a sacred time for people (actual people), their families, and friends, not soulless, impersonal, inanimate corporate structures. God didn’t make any corporations in the Bible. They are a strictly human invention with lots of flaws to answer for to us.
They (not a one, not a single one) are ever going to make the cut for entrance to heaven. Sorry, company boosters. Just telling it like it is, keeping it real. Even the earthly
Even the most glorious, successful, and well run physical entities (Churches) housing and ministering to God’s children under Internal Revenue Code (“IRC”) section 501(c)(3), don’t stand a chance to enter heaven to comfort their worthy members. God has better eternal taste and standards than that.
Good Christians that I know spend their spiritual time mostly working on their own personal flaws and sins, and then devoting any left over religious energy to spreading the Good Word by action example before their fellow men.
What practicing Christian would waste their limited essence futilely trying to save faceless business entities who can’t go to heaven, whatever the entities say or don’t say at Christmas time.
Come on, people! Onward Christian Soldiers for live souls at risk, and troubled fellow citizens, not robots and dead bricks, not to say filthy Mammon.
So much for the origin and ultimate victory in the War on Christmas.
Trump’s Christmas Tweet Redux
Back to Trump.45’s official Christmas Twit video message. He has restored the joyous use of Merry Christmas as a holiday greeting for all Americans, even for those who don’t recognize it was ever lost to them..
Sorry Charley, but I have lived in America as a Christian adult for the entire 10 tears of the War on Christmas era. Like most Americans (hundreds of millions, in fact), I said Merry Christmas thousands of times before 2006 (since about say 1954), and hundreds or thousands of times more since 2006. Sometimes, I even get cheeky and say Merry Christmas, in a loud voice, at other times, like in July, or during the Autumn Solstice, just to make a point and exercise my inalienable freedom and discretion.
I have never been restrained from offering Christmas wishes (good or bad) in my own way in all that time. And neither has any other free American person. I also greet my Jewish friends with an appropriate seasonal greeting for their holidays like Hanukkah, Passover, Yom Kippur, and Rosh Hashanah. Acknowledging their traditions on a personal level does not diminish my religious beliefs in any way, not a jot or tittle.
I have fewer Muslim friends and acquaintances, but I try and offer them greetings appropriate to their religious holiday season like Ramadan, Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), etc. The same applies to friends and colleagues who are agnostic, atheists, or uncertain believers. No constitutional error or fault in those religious belief systems either.
There are some evangelicals out there who may be starting to bristle at seeing a few letters of Arabic in this post. Let me remind them that the Feast of the Sacrifice Muslims celebrate is Abraham’s act of obedience to God by offering to sacrifice his own son at God’s command. Yes, that Abraham Christians revere in the Old Testament. Watch your tongues.
To do otherwise would be churlish, rude, ignorant, and intolerant We don’t have a state sponsored Religion in America That simple fact is one of the Glories of our Nation. We do have the First Amendment, which protects the full expression of individual religious beliefs according to each citizen’s own private conscience, provided that practice does not impinge on another citizen’s constitutional rights.
Christians are not one size fits all. The Bible does not enjoin believers to say “Merry Christmas” anywhere throughout the entire scriptures. Not in English (the latter day also ran source of biblical study), nor in Hebrew, nor in Koine Greek, nor in Aramaic (the original three biblical languages). Nor in Latin (the next closest source of biblical writings).
Christians are not mandated to all say Hail Mary’s, or pray the Lords Prayer exactly the same way, not agree on baptism rites, nor accept the same ages of confirmation for believers, nor celebrate Communion the same way as other Christians, nor use the same hymns, nor have the same order of religious service, nor adopt the rituals of confession, nor require priestly celibacy, nor agree on the ordination of women, nor require being born again as a token of belief, not accept speaking in tongues as a religious expression of faith, nor use the same ingredients for the communal elements, nor read the same translation of the Bible as a basis for worship, and so on, and so forth. Any sect claiming to possess superior knowledge or authorization from God to adjudicate these matters vis a vis other groups of believers is trumped by our Constitution. Amen to that.
Get over yourselves people. God accepts silent prayer and communion as worthy offerings. No verbalization required. Fancy public verbal displays and declarations of piety reek of the public behavior of Pharisees, whom Jesus calls out for hypocrisy and bad behavior in general.
From the King James Version of the Bible:
Matthew 6:5-6King James Version (KJV)
5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
As for Trump.45’s expressed doctrinal view, there was nothing to restore or correct about Christmas greetings, so far as actual Christian faith practice goes. Something Trump.45 might know, if he spent a little more time actually reading and studying his own purported faith and Holy Scriptures.
Fox and others have made a particular point about the White House crèche, and its “restoration” to a place of honor at Christmas, under the benevolent guidance of Trump.45 in his first year of office,
Except this is complete and utter baloney, peddled as a cheap conspiracy red herring, which is debunked rot and piffle.
Why would a Faithful Christian Say Such a Thing?
A little actual history. Display of the beautiful White House crèche is a 56 year old continuous tradition at Christmas. It was first displayed in 1961 under new President John F Kennedy (D). It was the chosen as the front-piece art work for the 1963 President’s White House Christmas card, the same year JFK was assassinated.
The crèche is a work of art made in Naples in the 18th century from terra cotta and carved wood. So the crèche itself is not American in origin, but rather an immigrant work of art. In 1967 the crèche was donated to Lyndon Johnson (D) as a gift to the nation.
From the White House Holidays website:
Each year since the first Kennedy Christmas, an 18th century Neapolitan crèche has been on display in the White House. In 1961, Loretta Hines Howard, a noted collector of religious figures, installed the crèche in a niche in the East Room against a backdrop of gold curtains. The individual figures – men, women, angels, animals, kings and cherubs depicted the Nativity scene arranged in a pyramid shape symbolic of the evergreen tree.
In 1967 a permanent gift of the Nativity was given to Mrs. Lyndon Johnson and is part of the White House collection.
Since 1967, this beautiful nativity scene has been display every year, every single year, in the special niche in the White House created for it. A total of 50 years continuously, by every President, Republican or Democrat, with not one of them claiming primary, innovation, restoration, or personal credit.
Kennedy (D), Johnson (D), Nixon (R), Ford (R), Carter (D), Regan (R), Bush I (R), Clinton (D), Bush II (R)and Obama (D). Ten Presidents in an unbroken line, every single year; five Democrats and 5 Republicans, every one of them. Counting from the time of Kennedy’s original introduction (he started it all), 28 years on the Democratic watch, and 28 years on the Republican watch.
The White House crèche was introduced as a part of White House Christmas cultural traditions of the United States by a martyred Democratic President, made a permanent part of the White House art collections by another Democratic President, and continued unbroken by the latest Democratic President Obama for all eight years out of eight in his two full terms. And throw in all twelve Democratic years of Jimmy Carter (D) and Bill Clinton (D).
So, I ask you, what does petulant Little Donnie have to do with this wonderful national tradition? Say again? That’s right, absolutely nothing.
Trump.45 had nothing to do with it. He didn’t suggest it, he didn’t start it, he didn’t commission the work, he didn’t pay for it, he didn’t arrange for its permanent addition to the White House collection, he didn’t make a new display location, he didn’t unveil a a new ceremony, he didn’t restore the work. He did precisely nothing, and he is responsible for precisely nothing, he deserves credit for precisely nothing. He has added precisely nothing. Not a new name, a new slogan, a new motto, a new hat, a new base, a new lightening scheme, a new color scheme, not even a new set of drapes. Nothing whatever at all.
The annual Christmas nativity scene crèche exists entirely independent and completely outside any activity of Trump.45, and has gone on smoothly placidly for more than half a century without his input, attention, scene stealing, or boastful bragging. In point of fact, the youngish Trump was just 15, a mere high school sophomore, when this solid White House tradition was inaugurated.
Trump.45 is a follower, a copier, a holiday ceremonial retread, a poseur, a go along unoriginal fellow traveller feeding off other men’s contributions and traditions, White House crèche-wise. In other words, an absolute, complete shlump.
But, he does boast of accomplishing what other Presidents (every last one of them) have routinely done and celebrated for more than five decades.
The only genuine original Trump.45 touch here is his blatantly phony effort to try and steal credit from those responsible, without exhibiting any shame, or honor, or moral principles.
So what do you think about them holiday apples, Trump’s most faithful believers?
There may be a War on Christmas all right, but it is coming from a band of so-called Christians who covet lie, and steal the good works of others created by others before them. Like a Stolen Identity Scheme for reputation and political profit.
Seems like a common thread nowadays, doesn’t it?
Regardless, in the true Spirit of the Season:
Merry Christmas to All. And to All a Good Night.
Trump.45’s Culpability in this Mess
Trump.45 might honestly be better off, and the nation surely would be, if he tried to excavate the veritable mountains of wax out of his aging ears, and listened (occasionally or even fleetingly) to someone other than the Fox & Friends off-kilter brain trust and propaganda machine.
As for his errors in factual transmission about the history of the White House crèche and its role in Christmas celebration, of course Trump.45 can assign blame to some incompetent, ignorant, unprepared morons on his close personal White House staff inner circle. No doubt one or more of them will be willing to mount the spike of public error to deflect from his Boss.
But, in the honorable tradition of Presidents owning up to bearing the executive ultimate responsibility for actions on their watch, embodied in Harry Truman’s famous concentrate of the principle, “The Buck Stops Here” (October 2, 1945).
Note the date Truman received his famous desk sign. In October 1945, Truman had been President for less than six months. He had just received the unconditional surrender of Japanese Imperial Forces to conclude World War II, having had to make, only two months before, the most agonizing choice whether or not use two nuclear weapons for the first and last time in human history, while facing a colossal battle to defeat the Japanese Empire and risk perhaps s million fresh U.S. military casualties to invade their home islands to secure victory against desperate enemy troops prepared to fight to the death.
By any reasonable comparison, Trump.45’s first year as President is a veritable cakewalk, leisurely stroll in the park, Presidential duty-wise compared to Truman’s awesome burdens every day before lunch. And he still manned up in the most resolute way.
Trump.45 might slide clear in business deals while creative hyperbolizing the truth, he can play Boss when he fake fires someone on the Apprentice reality TV gig, but not in real life 2017 America.
He deserves to enjoy the full immersion bath of opprobrium directed at the arrogantly ignorant dunce who listens to moronically ignorant staff incompetents for factual data.
Shame on you all. Try and do marginally better in what time you have left to get it straight.
All Americans would appreciate it very sincerely.
Musical Coda
There are many beautiful, inspiring Christmas hymns and anthems for this time of year. One of my most personal favorites is sung by Johnny Mathis.
Mathis’ performance and the hymns’ message requires no further explanation, least of all from a repentant sinner, trying to follow the Good Book’s injunctions for his own life and struggles.
Please listen to the music and marvel.
Merry Christmas To All
December 25, 2017