A Thoroughly Deplorable Christmas
Breitbart is peddling holiday goods. But whatever happened to peace on earth and good will?
Surveying America back in 2013, I concluded that “Christmas Is Kicking Ass in the War on Christmas,” noting the open-air Nativity scenes in the secular progressive enclave of Santa Monica; the 76-foot Christmas tree uncontroversially erected in the heart of New York City; the choir publicly singing "Happy birthday, Jesus! Happy birthday, Lord!" in Washington, D.C., and more.
This affection for the holiday that marks the birth of Jesus Christ extended all the way to the White House, where President Barack Obama recorded videos wishing the nation “Merry Christmas” in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2016. “This is such a wonderful time of year,” Michelle Obama added one year, “a time to honor the story of love and redemption that began 2,000 years ago, to see the world through a child’s eyes and rediscover the magic all around us, and to give thanks for the gifts that bless us every single day.”
But this year, a popular website associated with the populist-right political faction that controls the White House is subverting the Christmas spirit. Traditionally, it meant peace on earth, and good will toward men. But Breitbart readers are being asked to visit an online store that the company has set up called Deplorable Christmas, where the gifts express the values of “war” and ill-will.
Three gift items are available for purchase: a Breitbart flask with a “war” hashtag and ad copy suggesting that liberal relatives might drive the possessor to drink:
A snowflake Christmas ornament marketed by mocking the sensitivities of political rivals:
And finally, the classic three-flavor popcorn tin, but with a lid bearing a holiday quote not from the Bible, but from Donald Trump: “We’re saying ‘Merry Christmas’ again.”
It wouldn’t be a Breitbart offering, after all, if it didn’t mislead its readers in order to advance the lies of the president, who is trying desperately, amid bleak approval ratings, to take credit for restarting something that never in fact stopped.
For years, Breitbart has repeatedly complained about the “war on Christmas” as if the most culturally dominant holiday in America was under attack. Now, it has encouraged its readers to do their Christmas shopping in an online store hawking goods that are starkly at odds with everything for which the holiday is supposed to stand. The website, like the president it loves, has put politics upstream of Christmas.
That’s naughty, not nice.