«If God did not exist, we would have to invent him” said Voltaire. The same goes for the culture wars that, even if they don’t exist, are invented by the (Make America Great Again) movement of .
During the holiday season, the movement is rebranded as “Make Christmas Merry Again,” an insistence that Trump should become president to bring back the Christian wish of “Merry Christmas,” instead of politically correct and inclusive wishes like “Merry Christmas” or “Winterfest,” which are generally supposed to have Democrats.
Among MAGA’s favorite targets are: Black Santa, an inclusive representation aimed at African-American children that so scandalized the Fox News host Megyn Kellyso as to proclaim that “Santa Claus is white!”.
“For all you kids- Santa just is white” 🤡 Megyn Kelly
— 🌻Justice⚖Now 🌟🇺🇸 (@ChrisJustice01)
‘Drag Queen Christmas’ touring show, which Florida’s attorney general has launched a personal crusade against James Athmeyer for his “demonic suits”.
The mangers of the “blasphemous woke churches”, in his expression Sean Hannityalso a Fox News anchor, portraying the infant uncle as a victim of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) anti-immigration policy and the Virgin Mary as a “refugee virgin.”
The plan and the expensive holidays
Trump himself appeared convinced from the outset that there was a plan to eliminate the “Merry Christmas” wish, as well as to replace crosses with “social justice flags,” which stopped with his election.
This year, in a speech in Pennsylvania, he expressed satisfaction that he had succeeded: “Finally, the world is saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again”. THE “war on christmas” was defeated. However, the Americans did not win the “Christmas bio-wrestling”.
It is estimated that because of the tariffs, an American household spends an average of $132 more on holiday expenses this year than last year, or 4%, while total spending by American families reached $1 trillion.
Trump was nevertheless successful in the more personal battle he fought in his own household, the White House. Already from the first term, Melania Trump had drawn criticism for decorating the White House with white or red Christmas trees. The latter, for the most ill-intentioned, reminded of the bloody Trump policies. “Do me a favor and let the trees be green” President Trump told her in a statement this year, adapting the MAGA slogan to “Make Christmas-trees Green Again” for the occasion.
Among the specific actions that Trump boasts of bringing about the “defeat” of the “war on Christmas” is the executive order he issued last February entitled “Eliminating Anti-Christian Bias.”
This targets the “radical transgender ideology” that was “imposed” on the Christian people by the government Biden, and there is talk of “protection”, which usually means censorship. Somehow the nationalist discourse with which the majority of Christians sacrifice themselves against religious and social minorities became official presidential policy.
All adapted to ideology
In fact, if anyone likes to rewrite Christmas history, it’s the MAGA movement. O Donald Trump Jr shared on social media an image of his father as Santa Claus who had made an extensive list not of the children who would receive presents, but of the immigrants who would be deported.
🤣🤣🤣
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr)
For the Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green the meaning of Christmas is to abolish abortion.
And while attacks on boats in the Caribbean could hardly be described as a Christmas custom, the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth used visuals from the children’s series “Franklin” to craft the fictional story “Franklin Targets Narco-Terrorists,” where the turtle-like hero takes down alleged drug smugglers.
For your Christmas wish list…
— Pete Hegseth (@PeteHegseth)
The vice president Jay Dee Vance sent out invitations to a reception for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, which read at the top that his family was celebrating “50 historic years of Christmas.” The mention of Christmas in a card related to the Jewish holiday was considered inelegant.
But the spokesman insisted that it was not done by mistake, but was a uniform pattern used for all the events that took place at the vice president’s residence. In a corresponding case in 2008 during Bush’s presidency, an apology was requested for what was perceived as a mistake. This year, however, it was implied that the inclusion of Christmas in invitations to celebrations of other religions was a conscious choice.
The “legionaries of Antichrist”
This year, however, the “innovative” theological narrative that has engaged the public discourse the most comes from his mentor Jay de Vance, the German-born venture capitalist Peter Till.
In a series of speeches in San Francisco, the billionaire Republican Party donor developed the theological theory that those who criticize technology, artificial intelligence and economic innovation are “legionaries of the Antichrist” who want to degrade America and usher in an age of global totalitarianism.
According to Till, the Antichrist would look like the activist today Greta Thunberg or him Eliezer Woodkowskian artificial intelligence researcher who wishes to prevent the point of “singularity”, where machines will acquire humanoid self-awareness. Till’s logic is that strict regulations pave the way for global totalitarianism, which is the work of the Antichrist, since for the anarcho-capitalist entrepreneur Christ is the symbol of the free individual individual who resists universal authority.
As for the Trump movement, this is probably what the apostle Paul calls a “possessor” (II Thessalonians 2,6-7), i.e. the force that suspends – or postpones for the most pessimistic – the Antichrist, i.e. total globalism, through the “America first” policy, multipolarity and the fragmentation of the rules-based international order.
Although for many conspiracy theorists Thiel himself, co-founder of PayPal and the shadowy data processing giant Palantir, is a strong candidate for what the Antichrist would look like today, Vance’s mentor has a clear conscience as he puts his forces in the service of dismantling the intractable politics of globalization.
Till, self-proclaimed student of the French anthropologist Rene Girardfrom whom he learned about the anti-authoritarian character of the infant god, is an extreme version of the ideologicalization of religion. In different guises, however, Christmas remains at the center of the MAGA culture wars.
