As the world turns, the cycle of outrage at fictitious struggles comes with it. The self proclaimed War on Christmas is back with a fury this year, in no small part due to our conspiracy theorist in chief. Yes, the President has been stoking the flames of the inexplicable Christian persecution complex that is the root of so many of our political bugbears. It seems like it is always worth saying: a failure of the government to enshrine your specific beliefs does not infringe on your right to practice them.

That’s the whole point, so that Catholics can hold office in places other than Massachusetts and the Baptists and Congregationalists of Connecticut can live in peace. It also means that anyone of any other faith can live with the same guarantee of freedom; Jews, Muslims, Atheists, Hindus, Buddhists, Taoists, Zoroastrians etc. It should be one of the easiest concepts to grasp about the United States of America, that if one group is given explicit power or favor, i.e. the Mormons get to put a statue of Joseph Smith on the National Mall, then all other groups are undermined and clearly out of favor, making them second class citizens.

And now in the emotional whirlwind that used to be politics that we are living through everyday, this has happened. The whole ad smacks of fascism with a gaggle of working class citizens paying verbal tribute to the benevolent leader. At the end of the ad, a little girl comes on and thanks President Trump for letting us all say Merry Christmas again. This campaign of misinformed jack-bootlicking and this instance of it are downright disgusting. No one in the United States of America was ever prevented from saying Merry Christmas. It never happened. The closest we could have come was employees in retail and restaurants being asked to say “Happy Holidays” instead. That wouldn’t have come from the federal level either, because inclusivity is just good business.(See the recent ousting of the Papa John’s CEO) No law on the books, no Obama in office ever stopped any citizen from saying the words “Merry Christmas”.

Raising children to believe that they should be grateful to any President, and not the Constitution, for their freedom of speech is obviously dangerous for their future. Between this and the way the cabinet plays a game of round robin with stroking the fragile ego of our chief executive, there is a worrying stench in the air. Mr. Obama’s tan suit was a drop in the ocean compared to all these brown shirts in office.

Yuletide Cheer to you and yours.