December 4th 2019

By Bill Berkowitz

A brief history of the “War on Christmas”: 
* Massachusetts Bay Colony Puritans bans and later unbans Christmas celebrations
* Henry Ford blames the Jews
* The John Birch Society blames the Communists and the Jews
* VDare’s Peter Brimelow blames almost everyone, especially immigrants

* The American Family Association monetizes it
* Fox News’ John Gibson writes a book about it
* Fox News' Bill O'Reilly makes it one of his signature campaigns
* Trump jumps aboard the War on Christmas train

The Religious Right’s “War on Christmas” has become as American as police shootings of unarmed Black men, drones striking weddings in Afghanistan, Attorney General William Barr attacking secularists and progressives for destroying America, and indicted supporters and members of the Trump Administration. And, “War on Christmas” hype appears to start-up earlier and earlier each year.

On November 22, Jim Bakker -- the discredited, convicted huckster and sexual predator -- told his television audience that he was “afraid” that “Christmas would be outlawed.” In fact, Bakker added, “They tried to outlaw it already.” “The stores a couple of years ago weren’t allowed to say ‘Merry Christmas.’” Bakker closed his brief rant by thanking Trump for allowing Americans to say “Merry Christmas” as long as he’s president.

Donald Trump prattled on about the “War on Christmas” narrative during his campaign. He told a Wisconsin crowd: “When I started 18 months ago, I told my first crowd in Wisconsin that we are going to come back here some day and we are going to say ‘Merry Christmas’ again. Merry Christmas. So, Merry Christmas everyone. Happy New Year, but Merry Christmas.”

And in 2017 Generalisimo Donald “Bone Spur” Trump tweeted “People are proud to be saying Merry Christmas again. I am proud to have led the charge against the assault of our cherished and beautiful phrase. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!”

While Bill O’Reilly has been dishonorably discharged from “War on Christmas” duties, several ultra-conservative groups including the American Family Association, and the legal group, Liberty Counsel, continue to be combatants in one of America’s twenty-first century’s longest ongoing wars; the “War on Christmas.”

Christian conservatives’ ‘Naughty and Nice’ list
According to a recent post by People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch, “Anti-LGBTQ legal group Liberty Counsel launched … its annual ‘Naughty and Nice’ list which is meant to steer shoppers away from stores that rely too much on ‘Happy Holidays’ messaging and not enough on ‘the true Reason for the season.’ The list is part of the group’s ‘Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign,’ which promises to be a ‘Foe’ to those who try to ‘censor’ Christmas.”

Liberty Counsel’s “Nice” list includes Bath & Body Works, Best Buy, Hobby Lobby Stores, Hallmark, The Home Depot, Sears, and Walmart.

The “Naughty” list includes Barnes & Noble, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Gap, Inc. Rite Aid Pharmacy, Target, and Walgreens.

Interestingly enough, it was the Puritans, followed by Henry Ford, who, Daniel Denvir has written, “was an avid proponent of the idea that someone—or more precisely, some group—was waging a war on Christmas.” In Ford's infamous and widely distributed set of anti-Semitic articles titled The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem, Ford maintained, Christmas was being messed with by the Jews.

The far-right anti-Semitic John Birch Society followed Ford. Then along came radio host John Gibson who begat Bill O’Reilly who eventually begat Donald Trump.

Obviously, the War on Christmas pre-dates Trump’s blustery involvement. “The most organized attack on Christmas came from the Puritans, who banned celebrations of the holiday in the 17th century because it did not accord with their interpretation of the Bible,” The New York Times Liam Stack wrote in December 2016.

Fast forward some 400 years and along came the John Birch Society with a hot- button pamphlet called "There Goes Christmas," which basically blamed the Jews for secularizing Christmas. Never mind that some of the most popular 20th century Christmas songs -- including “The Christmas Song,” “The Christmas Waltz.” “Home for the Holidays,” “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town” – were written or co-written by Jews.

The modern “War on Christmas” meme had its origin in 2005, when a book by radio host, John Gibson, titled “The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought.” went peddle-to-the- metal blaming liberals for attacking Christmas symbols and for championing “Happy Holidays” greetings instead of “Merry Christmas.”

In 2012, then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, never one to let a good hustle pass him by, took it upon his weighty shoulders to become thee Generalisimo in the “War on Christmas.” O’Reilly told his viewers that liberals were “tying the Christmas situation into secular progressive politics” because they wanted “a new America, and traditional Christmas isn’t a part of it.”

In 2016, the sex-harassment-plagued Generalisimo O’Reilly announced triumphantly that “That culture war issue ignited and we won. Donald Trump is on the case.” 

Yet, here we are three years later and the “War on Christmas” is still being waged by conservative Christian evangelicals. Surprise! Surprise!

Bill Berkowitz is a longtime observer of the conservative movement. His Conservative Watch columns document the strategies, players, institutions, victories and defeats of the American Right.