12/23/2023
I must admit I felt a pang when James Karlsson, the brilliant 24 year-old Director of the new White Papers Policy Institute, just admitted on his Christmas podcast that he has never heard of my World-Historical role in the War On Christmas war. (I am still credited by Wikipedia with having popularized the term, although it’s wrong about the date — I actually talked National Review Editor John O’Sullivan into launching a competition to find the grossest attempt to suppress Christmas way back in 1995, part of my generally disastrous impact on his career.)
But this pang is not (solely) because I Don’t Get No Respect (I’m used to that!). It’s a reminder that I’ve not done a major piece on the War On Christmas since 2016, (when Karlsson was still in high school).
There are reasons for this failure. My beautiful and brilliant wife Lydia has professionalized our fundraising which, because charities raise most money between Thanksgiving and New Year, means that this period has become a frantic scramble for all of us. (Donate here to fulfil our Christmas Eve Matching Grant!)
Also, my children with Lydia are growing up and I am spending more time with them over the Christmas season. They now talk and have opinions, More frantic scramble! I dream of a Twelve Days of Christmas break!
But, finally, the War On Christmas itself is now being memory-holed by the Regime Media, which means that (like black-on-white crime) it’s increasingly difficult to follow. (But VDARE.com has being following it — check out our War On Christmas tag!)
You can see why they’re doing this. Like Brexit, and the 2016 election of Donald Trump, resistance to the War On Christmas was a grassroots phenomenon that took the Ruling Class completely by surprise. Their response: hysterical repression.
The existence of the War On Christmas is one of a number of things that Leftists simultaneously view as true or not true depending on their tactical polemical requirements.
But of course It does exist. Here’s the Los Angeles Times editorial board in 2006:
Perusing 125 year of Christmas editorials in the Los Angeles Times is a dizzying experience…journalistic sensibilities have shifted so radically…Up until the 1960s, many of these annual paeans read as if they were written by Christian pastors, and wouldn’t sound out of place if read aloud during a Sunday church sermon.
Few things could signal the about-face more sharply than an editorial from 1989 that urges people to say “Happy Holidays” rather than “Merry Christmas,” so as not to cause offense to non-Christians. [Emphasis added]
And here’s the London Economist in 2023 again split-running its U.K. and U.S. covers for fear of American (?) sensibilities:
If there’s no War On Christmas — as the Economist itself, ludicrously, has claimed — why is it split-running its cover?
A few cringeworthy recent examples, significantly not picked up by the national Regime Media:
But of course the big difference this year: Fox News has apparently abandoned the War On Christmas issue, after one strong statement (greeted with Shock! Horror!).
This is not altogether a surprise. Fox News has wavered on the issue several times, apparently under advertiser/ interest group pressure.
When I last discussed the War On Christmas. I saw nine phases:
I then thought the Ruling Class, drunk with power after Obama’s reelection, was on the verge of suddenly declaring that resistance to the War On Christmas was Unacceptable, just as it did with homosexual marriage in 2014 — and the Confederate Battle Flag in 2015.
But in 2013 I concluded that, not for the first time, I seemed to have been early — as I was in 2004, when I predicted the first outbreak of nastiness, which didn’t show up until 2008. Just as on the Western Front a century ago, we saw
establishing itself for the next three years. As in World War I, trench warfare does mean that the enemy
pictures of Cleveland Christmases past
(if you identify with the Allies) is in possession of much of the field. You need only glance at the
And the Christophobes were still able to launch successful local offensives which the national MSM now often will not report.
It’s now undeniable that, as the late Sam Francis predicted in 2004, the War On Christmas Is A War On The West.
But the War On The West, and on White America, has become so widespread that the War On Christmas is (almost) overshadowed.
However, Trump, with his undeniably uncanny instincts, still thinks it’s worth raising:
As soon as I get back in the Oval Office, I’ll also immediately end the war on Christians. Under crooked Joe Biden Christians and Americans of faith are being persecuted and government has been weaponized against religion like never before.
Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice that’s fair and equitable. Its mission will be to investigate all forms of illegal discrimination, harassment, and persecution against Christians in America.
Trump: ‘They’re going to be saying Merry Christmas again,’ by Grant Burdette, YellowHammerNews, December 22, 2023
Will he do it? Who knows?
But Joe Biden certainly will not.
Peter Brimelow is the editor of VDARE.com. His best-selling book, Alien Nation: Common Sense About America’s Immigration Disaster, is now available in Kindle format.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.