Donald Trump Takes Credit For Winning A War That Never Happened
The alleged American "War on Christmas" seems to have originated on cable news and social media, but different groups and famous public figures have been conjuring up a perceived war on Christmas for the last century. According to Politico, pioneering car manufacturer Henry Ford took umbrage with the selection of Christmas cards available one year, writing the following, "Last Christmas most people had a hard time finding Christmas cards that indicated in any way that Christmas commemorated someone's birth."
And, back in 1959, the conservative John Birch Society tried to alert Americans that there was an "assault on Christmas" with department stores using more secular decorations.
However, the modern 'War on Christmas' seems to have been born in the Fox News building, according to Vice, where former primetime host Bill O'Reilly aired a 2004 segment called "Christmas Under Seige." During the segment, he griped that New York City's mayor, Mike Bloomberg, had debuted a "holiday tree" for the city, and claimed that department store workers were greeting customers with "Happy holidays" rather than "Merry Christmas."
However, the long-waged and so-called war on Christmas seems to finally be over thanks to someone who once declared "I alone can fix it."
Donald Trump declares the War on Christmas to be over
During an interview for Newsmax with Mike Huckabee, that was filmed at his Mar-a-Lago resort, the twice-impeached former President Donald Trump took credit for bringing back the phrase "Merry Christmas" (via The Daily Beast).
"America had gone through a long period where people quit saying "Merry Christmas." It was all "Happy Holidays." You deliberately changed that!" Huckabee claimed while speaking to Trump, prompting the former president to reply that he purposely pushed back agaisnt "woke" influences who he believes made it "embarrassing" for people to say "Merry Christmas."
Trump continued, "When I started campaigning, I said you're going to say 'Merry Christmas' again, and now people are saying it ... I would say it all the time during that period, that we want them to say "Merry Christmas." Don't shop at stores that don't say "Merry Christmas" and I'll tell you, we brought it back very quickly."
Donald Trump says Christmas is a holiday for all
During his Newsmax Christmas special from Mar-a-Lago, former president Donald Trump not only claimed victory over the so-called war on Christmas, but also went on to declare Christmas a multi-cultural holiday, insisting that people of all religions should be relieved to be permitted to utter the word "Christmas" once again.
"Whether you're Muslim, whether you're Christian, whether you're Jewish, everyone loves Christmas. And they say "Merry Christmas" — until these crazy people came along and they wanted to stop it along with everything else," Trump added.
The Daily Beast also made note of the fact that despite Newsmax airing this special, the company is calling its very own December work party a "Holiday Reception."