January 2021 – Page 2

Trump’s laziness and aversion to political and legislative grunt work have seriously limited his success as president.

One of the worst aspects of Trump’s presidency has been his failure to engage in the hard and difficult work of leading, governing, and policymaking.

Instead, Trump too often has been content with tweeting and bloviating—as if loudly and boisterously saying something somehow sufficed and nothing more need be done.

But of course, governance involves a lot more than tweeting. It involves crafting public policies and legislation; cajoling lawmakers and the bureaucracy; forming and building political coalitions; working to communicate, explain, and persuade.

And here, Trump has been a dismal failure—mainly because he is too lazy and undisciplined to do the laborious grunt work required of any successful president.

Consider, for instance, the war on Christmas, which I discussed in my previous post. This is a serious cultural problem that transcends politics. However, there are certain things that a conscientious and serious-minded president could do to help make Americans less afraid to explicitly acknowledge Christmas.

For example, the president could issue an executive order explaining in detail that federal agencies have every right to acknowledge Christmas because Christmas is, after all, inscribed into law as a national holiday.

Thus government agencies that have Christmas gatherings or celebrations, or that wish their employees Merry Christmas, are not violating any federal law or policy.

The president, likewise, could give a major speech about the war on Christmas and why that war is antithetical to our history, culture, and political traditions.

He could explain why the Constitution permits public schools to have Christmas concerts and allows schoolchildren to sing Christmas carols.

The president could order his Department of Justice to examine the Constitutional questions involved in these and similar cases and controversies, which have arisen nationwide in recent decades.

Trump Is AWOL. In short, there are things a thoughtful and determined president could do to draw attention to this problem while helping to buck up Americans who have been cowed and intimidated by the militant secularists. Trump, though, has done none of these things.

What Trump has done is tweet—boastfully, impotently, and counterproductively. For example, on Christmas Eve, 2017, Trump tweeted:

Of course, this is a complete lie. Trump has led no such “charge,” and nothing he has done as president has made people more inclined to say “Merry Christmas.” On this issue, as on many others, Trump has been all talk (or tweet) and little or no action.

Unfortunately, Trump’s aversion to the hard and difficult work of leading, governing, and policymaking has not been confined to the war on Christmas. Instead, it has marred his entire presidency and undermined his ability to get things done on myriad issues.

Section 230. In the week before Christmas, for instance, Trump vetoed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). He said that one of the bill’s major shortcomings is that it does not include a provision to repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996.

That law, Trump tweeted, “gives unlimited power to big tech companies.” Now, this may or may not be true; but what certainly is true is this:

Trump never made any serious or sustained effort to explain to legislators and the American people why Section 230 is a bad law that must be repealed.

Instead, Trump belatedly demanded that the law be repealed as part of another piece of unrelated legislation (the NDAA). A dictator can get away with that; a democratically elected ruler cannot.

The president’s job is to build public support for legislation through concerted political action. But the sad and lamentable truth is that Trump never has been willing to engage politically in a serious and sustained fashion. He’d much rather vent his spleen on Twitter.

The result: too many missed opportunities; too many initiatives never taken, and too many balls fumbled.

As a result, Americans today are no less afraid to acknowledge Christmas than they were before Trump became president—and Section 230 is no closer to being repealed either.

This is something GOP voters must recognize when, in 2024, they have to choose another presidential nominee. The party cannot afford to nominate someone like Trump—someone too lazy and undisciplined to lead and to govern.

To win politically and legislatively, the party needs a workhorse, not a showhorse or showman.

Feature photo credit: Dave Horsey, Seattle Times cartoonist.

Through an act of political jiu-jitsu, militant secularists have largely succeeded in eliminating Christmas from the public square.

Remember the war on Christmas? Because of COVID and the presidential election, it received little attention this past year, except for the sneers and snickering of left-wing elites who pretend that it’s all a big right-wing hoax or fantasy.

But the sad and lamentable truth is that Christmas is now the holiday which (in secular, public settings at least) no one dare say or mention by name.

Consequently, there are no workplace Christmas parties, only “holiday parties.” Schools have “holiday breaks” and government agencies issue “holiday messages.”

“Holiday trees” have replaced Christmas trees. Store clerks wish customers a “Happy Holiday,” while steering clear of saying “Merry Christmas.”

As Dennis Prager has observed, we don’t do this with any other holiday.

We say “Happy Thanksgiving!”; we say “Happy Halloween!”; we say “Happy New Year!” But with regard to Christmas, we say “Happy Holiday!”

Now, why is that? Because of the deliberate attempt to dereligionize the United States of America.

Militant Secularists. Indeed, several militantly secular, left-wing organizations—including, for instance, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Military Religious Freedom Association, and Americans United for Separation of Church and State—have made it their mission to extirpate from public life any mention of Christmas and any expressions of religious faith.

“The left in America,” Prager explains, “like the left in Europe, wants to create a thoroughly secular society, not only a secular government—which is a desirable goal and which, in any event, has been the case in America—but a secular society.”

Sadly, they have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations, as increasing numbers of Americans are afraid to publicly acknowledge Chrismas. This despite the fact most Americans celebrate Christmas and Christmas has been inscribed into law as a national holiday.

“I have watched in my lifetime,” says the 72-year-old Prager, “the demise of Christmas as an essential part of American life, and it began with the dropping of Christmas for the word holiday.

“You’re intellectually dishonest,” he adds, “if you do not acknowledge that that was a deliberate attack on the specialness of Christmas.”

‘Tolerance’ and ‘Inclusiveness’. The anti-religious zealots have cowed Americans into silence by arguing, ludicrously, that it is unfair, if not unconstitutional, to “privilege” Christmas over other religious holidays.

Moreover, they assert (ostensibly with a straight face) that non-Christians who do not celebrate Christmas may be hurt, offended, or “excluded” if Christmas is mentioned while neglecting other religious holidays.

Of course, this is complete nonsense. Saying “Merry Christmas” is obviously a gesture of goodwill; it is not meant to disparage other religious faiths; and there are only two religious holidays of note during what is now euphemistically called the “holiday season”: Christmas and Hanukah.

And please don’t say, “What about Kwanza?” Kwanza is not a religious holiday. It is a faux holiday made up by a left-wing radical in the 1960s to deprecate Christmas while fostering Marxism and black separatism.

In truth, the vast majority of African Americans, like the overwhelming majority of Americans, are Christians who celebrate Christmas. Which, again, is why Christmas is a national holiday.

Hanukah, meanwhile, is religiously much less significant to Jews than Christmas is to Christians; but Jews are just two percent of the U.S. population—and many celebrate Christmas as a secular, national holiday.

In fact, as Prager notes, Jews have written almost all the most popular Christmas songs—including, for instance, “White Christmas” by Irving Berlin.

“Apparently, all these American Jews felt quite included by Christmas,” Prager says.

Moreover, non-Christians who take other faith traditions seriously—Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, et al.—are not offended by the mention of Christmas. As religious believers themselves, they welcome and appreciate this expression of piety and goodwill by people of other faith traditions.

Politics. No, the war on Christmas is a secular creation with a discernible political objective: to extirpate religion generally, and Christianity specifically, from the public square—and thereby eliminate one of the most significant and serious-minded obstacles, religious faith, to the left-wing project of “fundamentally transforming America.”

In short, the war on Christmas is real. We don’t hear much about it anymore because, in truth, the war is just about over.

The militant secularists have won and the American people, both religious and non-religious, have lost. And it is only with the benefit of hindsight decades hence that we will realize just how much we have lost.

Feature photo credit: Author, columnist, and radio talk show host Dennis Prager (screenshot via PragerU).