Interesting poll results on “the War on Christmas.” By a margin of 71 – 16 (13 undecided), people who identify themselves as being part of the Tea Party movement say they believe there is a “War on Christmas.” This is as compared to the general population where 40% say “yes” and 42% say “no.”
The reason that’s interesting to me is because the Tea Party has been billed as an economic movement, concerned about taxes and deficits. If it were a primarily economic movement, one would not expect much variation from the general public on a manufactured culture war issue. But Tea Partiers are more likely to buy into the “War on Christmas” nonsense than Republicans generally (58 – 27).
The reason, of course, is that the Tea Party isn’t fundamentally about economics. The economic arguments are a proxy for something else — that “undeserving” people are taking from the deserving and undoing the fabric of the country. That’s why they need to “take back” the country. This is just another chapter in the paranoid fantasy of a country that was once “Leave it to Beaver” or something but is being ruined — this time by Godless secularists who are practically spitting on the Baby Jesus every time they say “Happy Holidays.”
Consistent with my blog on church closings for Christmas (http://bit.ly/unPrbv), WHICH Christmas are they making war on? I expect no major secularist disruptions tonight or tomorrow at my Church (there were none this morning), and if people want to say “Piss on the commercial bacchanalia,” I’ll say “Amen!”
The whole attitude that someone else has “taken away my country” implies that this experiment is not expansive and inclusive… instead that there is a finite amount of everything and “we’ve” got it.. and “YOU” can’t have any. These are just matters of faith to them and there’s no objective facts that will change these.
Ah, Mr Bennett, leave it to Christmas for me to actually agree with you. I can’t believe that anyone would not have services on Christmas day… of course, I’ll be serving at Midnight Mass tonight.. at ACTUAL midnight..
It is really hard for me to believe that 40% of the general population believes this nonsense. That a huge number of Tea Party folks do, I understand, but for that high a proportion of average Americans to buy into this is astonishing. I guess Faux News and Rush Limbaugh are more effective–and average Americans are less rational–than I thought.
Indeed. I’m increasingly of the opinion that the only explanation for this kind of thinking is that these people, quite simply, hate America, since through word and deed they’re demonstrating their utter and energetic rejection of everything it stands for and was created to maintain–you know, that whole “freedom” thing. They don’t seem to like it very much.
Also, until Kim Jong-Il’s death last Friday, there was a possibility of an actual War on Christmas.
Not that the Tea Party fanatics are likely to care about having a sense of perspective or anything.
The War on Christmas may be “nonsense” now, but a few years ago it was definitely taking place. I remember the Lowes ad that came for the holiday season. In it were “Holiday” wreaths. Since I didn’t know if wreaths were solely a Christian symbol of Christmas, I couldn’t say if that was an example of the War on Christmas. Then I got to the Christmas Tree section, only they never, ever printed the phrase “Christmas Tree.” They were all labeled “holiday trees.” I’m pretty sure that the idea of a decorative tree for this time of year is solely something that sided with Christianity. Maybe Jews, Kwanzaa, Wiccans, Pagans, Druids, and Muslims erect Christmas trees in their homes, if so, then I could understand the ad. Again, I don’t think those groups do, and it was silly to call these “holiday trees.” The icing on the cake was when I got to the menorah ads. Now, following the removal of the religious affiliation of two items, one would expect to see a bunch of “holiday candle holders.” Did they use the word holiday to describe these candle holders? Of course not, they called them what they were, menorahs. So it is OK to call a menorah just that, but heaven forbid they call a wreath a “Christmas wreath” or a Christmas Tree just that.
Companies are so scared of offending someone, they don’t know what to do. They figured they would play it safe and refer to items with a common name buy something non-denominational, but instead make themselves look like fools. I don’t think there is a War to destroy Christmas, I think there is a bunch of PC blissninnie foolishness. For crying out loud, a Christmas tree is just that, a Christmas tree. Why Lowes fell the need to tip-toe around the word Christmas I’ll never know. Maybe by using the phrase “Holiday” they figured a bunch of Muslims, pagans, Wiccans, druids, and Jews would run out and start buying these trees?
Maybe they were being polite. God forbid.
Trust me, there is no War on Christmas. Last week I got to listen to my children sing (or pretend to sing) “Silent Night” and the “Halelujah Chorus” in a public school choir production. I’d like to know how my Christian friends would feel if their children were required to sing Allah’s praises or light incense for Buddha. Unfortunately, many of those same people who proclaim the existence of a War on Christmas have no problem shoving Christ down my kids’ throats. Perhaps it would be better phrased as a War on Diversity … but waged by the other side.
“Maybe they were being polite.” So not using the word “Christmas” is being polite? I mean I know there are a lot of anti-Christian or make-your-own-moral-code Christers in this country, but have we really become that pathetic of a country where a company is scared of being called “mean” or “hateful” if they date print the word Christmas when advertising a Christmas decoration? Pathetic. I guess I should have filed a complaint with the company, because as I non-Jewish person, I found use of the word menorah offensive. They should have used “holiday candle holder.” What’s good for one group should be applied to all groups.
December 25 actually is not the date when, if there was a Jesus, he was born. If the accunt of the Gospel of Luke is accurate, the date of birth would have been sometime in August of the year 6 C.E. Roman historical records are accurate enough to date the census of a minor despot named Herrodto about that time. Also, in December in the Middle East, shepherds would not have watched their flocks at night. It would have been too cold. They would have been in little hovels or caves, huddled with their flocks where it was warm. August was when early Christians celebrated the holiday. However, the Winter Solstice and the birth of the deity Mithra (a Middle East religion of the time) were December 21 or 22, and December 25, respectively. Early Christianity was in competition with other religions for adherents. A holiday—a big holiday—in the middle of winter was popular. So the date of what we call Christmas was changed. The current date for that celebration was hijacked from pagans. We pagans want our holiday back.
Look, the big stores are just trying to sell shit. Making money has always been the closest thing America has to a True Religion. Broadening the base of people who might buy a tree or whatever was probably the only concern – if there was a concern. A certain subset of perpetually aggrieved Christians, small but very loud, are the only ones I’ve seen making a fuss one way or another. And the theme of the loudness always seems to revolve around peeing on the public square, trying to mark their territory — it’s never that they aren’t allowed to do something religious; it’s that they’re not allowed to do it on government property or in the public square and make everyone else either join in or sit quietly and acknowledge their dominance.
And the complaints of how things are different now seem to be based on a false notion of history — the Founding Fathers and the Pilgrims never made a big fuss over Christmas. The Pilgrims saw Christmas as a pagan celebration or at least one not sanctioned by the Bible. The Founding Fathers seemed to have worked through Christmas as if it were just another day. Somehow, a version of Christmas that existed somewhere between Charles Dickens and Joe McCarthy is The One True Way to Celebrate and anything that changes the One True Way is evidence of anti-Christan.
In the words of Sgt. Hulka, “Lighten up, Francis.”
not everyone celebrates christmas. some celebrate hanukkah or kwanzaa instead. others don’t celebrate any of those, but still celebrate the new year. referring to “holidays” instead of christmas is, yes, an attempt to be polite to those who have different traditions.
it takes a pretty severe victimization complex to misinterpret a greeting of holiday cheer as some sort of attack.
finally, not only do some pagans buy trees for the holidays, but they were doing so for centuries before christians started doing it:
http://www.linguatics.com/origins_of_christmas.htm
Most of us during this most festive time of the year associate Christmastime with Christmas trees, those beautiful evergreens and noble firs of heavenly scent. Yet Christmas trees have no historical nor lingüistic connection whatsoever with “Christ’s mass”. They predate Christianity by thousands of years going back to the time of the Druids, that priestly class of the Celtic peoples who occupied what is now England and France millennia ago. The Druids, being sorcerers, prophets, priests, healers and curanderos, performed magical feats, cast multiple spells, worshipped Nature, and held secret hideaway meetings in sacred groves. During the time of their winter solstice around December 21st, the Druidic priests decorated trees outdoors with apples and lit candles, then placed them ever so cautiously on the branches out of gratitude to their god Odin for his bestowing fruits upon them. The candles represented the eternal Light of their sun god Balter. The Druids are the first known people to have decorated trees with apples (which represented fertility) at wintertide, and for them it served a religious purpose as well. Much later, the Christians integrated the concept of apples as ornaments upon the fir tree as symbolic of the Garden of Eden, to be associated with Adam and Eve’s eternal “fall from grace”.
The ancient Romans, centuries later, also put candles on the branches of trees during the month of December in honor of their Saturnalia, a week long party and fiesta in honor of their god of agriculture Saturnus. By adorning their trees with trinkets and handicrafts, the Romans paid tribute to their sun god Solarus, expressing hope and faith that the long days of darkness would become shorter and sunnier. Many historians believe that today’s custom of bringing in the Christmas tree is a direct descendant of this ancient Roman tradition, but this is not altogether certain. The ancient Egyptians, too, honored their goddess of harvest Isis, and their mother-of-the-Sun goddess Horus. This also coincided with the winter solstice (due to the Earth’s tilt and inclination of 23.5 degrees, thus producing our seasons). During this festival in late December, Egyptians brought palm branches into their homes, perhaps pre-empting Easter’s Palm Sunday, used as a symbol of the eternal nature of Life and of the continuance of Egyptian society itself.
Heard at my church about two months ago:
“If a store not saying ‘Merry Christmas’ offends you, perhaps you should consider why you care. Do you worship shopping at the store more than you worship at church?”
The tea party is a fiscal accountability and smaller government movement, so I’m not sure if singling them out on attitudes of Christmas is somehow worth reporting. As part of a general conservative movement, I suspect conservatives in general, of which evangelicals and others make a significant percentage, would be more appropriately found to believe there is not only a war on Christmas but a war on our citizens relating to an overbearing government and liberties that are eroding. Religious freedom, ranging from prayer at graduations, nativity scenes, bible studies at a school classroom, removing Christ from Christmas,are all a part of the picture of overgrown secular attitudes toward religious freedom, including the notion that the timing of Christmas coincides with pagan/secular rituals with a date chosen to recognize a birth. So what? The Christian world, including tea parties, conservatives, and liberals continues to be mature enough to celebrate in their own fashion without getting caught up in date mania.
I disagree with the opening thesis that the tea party is about something else and that the real thrust of economic accountability is merely a smokescreen. All the marches and rallies from local events to DC., and the 2010 election was not about Christmas.
Well, that’s kind of my point, Paul. The polling broke down the attitude on the “War on Christmas” issue by self-identified Tea Partiers as well as by conservatives and Republicans. Tea Partiers were more likely to believe in a “War on Christmas” than either conservatives or Republicans. Which strikes me as deeply weird if the Tea Party was primarily an economic phenomenon — as it’s been billed by some.
A primarily economic movement should be indistinguishable from the population at large on this kind of nonsensical culture war issue. A culture war movement masquerading as an economic movement, on the other hand, would be revealed by this kind of polling. This is just one data point, but I’d be interested to see the results of similar polling of Tea Party members on culture war issues as compared to the general public, Republicans, and conservatives.
Doug, I don’t see how relevant it is to anything. I still come back to ‘so what’. It was never an issue until conservatives were attacked. What you see is a symptom of a cultural backlash. I suspect Tea Partiers may also be more affiliated religiously than others, more fiscally conservative than others too. I still object to your jump that cultural beliefs primarily act as a smokescreen for Constitutional issues the tea party emphasizes. In the end, it doesn’t really matter what others think or say of the movement; only that we are vocalizing our complaints. As a tea partier, I can only offer my personal view of efforts that when we rally, Christmas is the furthest thing from my mind. Your jump to redefine the movement in forte of a cultural Christmas premise is simply untrue. You can have the last word.
The “so what” is that, if this is in fact a social movement masquerading as an economic one, then its participants will drop the economic concerns (once again) as soon as the underlying social politics are to their liking — e.g., if another One of Them, like George W. Bush takes the White House, I presume the bulk of the Tea Partiers will, once again, lose interest in the deficit. Maybe you won’t, but I expect the 71% who believe in a War on Christmas will.
I think “War” is a little strong, but there is something to the complaint. It is just a particularly noticeable instance of political correctness.
And the idea that Lowe’s is “just trying to sell shit” is very naive. I think outsiders would be very surprised to the extent that liberalism has captured the corporate boardroom, especially liberalism on social issues.
My company is anti-gun (they still have not accepted “bring your gun to work day”), pro-gay marriage, and absolutely on board with the whole “diversity” movement, especially when it comes to procurement (you want to sell to us, you best set up a shell corporation “owned” by a female handicapped minority).
Remember that “Diversity” is #21 on “Stuff White People Like”, and “Being offended” is #98. That’s what this is all about.
Tea Partiers will lose interest in the deficit when the deficit is no longer a problem. Tea Partiers are the same people that voted for Ross Perot. Once Clinton/ Gingrich got the deficit under control, the lost interest in the issue (perhaps rightly).
And I remind you, Doug, that the deficit was declining from 2003 to 2007, and was on a glide path to balance in 2009 or 2010. So to say that nobody cared about the deficit in, say, 2006, is kind of irrelevant. And Dubya was out of office at the end 2008, when the deficit exploded.
So, do you have an explanation for why Tea Partiers, as an ostensibly economic movement, might have a stronger-than-usual perception that there is a “War on Christmas?”
There shouldn’t be a link and, yet, there appears to be one. My theory is that the link is explained by understanding the Tea Party as a reactionary cultural movement where economic concerns are mostly a facade. Clearly, you disagree with that supposition.
Appearances might be deceiving here. Could be no causal connection between the two. Have you assembled evidence?
Nope. Just one data point.
Well, not just one, I suppose. But the others are less specific. For example, there is my perception that the Tea Party didn’t really form and its adherents mostly didn’t get noisy about the debt until after George W. Bush left office. Which, again, isn’t dispositive.
Couple more data points I stumbled across: (Caution, Robert Reich):
#60% of Tea Partiers say global warming isn’t real; versus something less than 50% of Republicans generally;
#60% of Tea Partiers don’t, apparently, believe in evolution.
#Tea Party Republicans are twice as likely as other Republicans to say abortion should be illegal in all circumstances, and half as likely to support gay marriage.
Reich suggests:
If these stats are correct, then the Tea Party does indeed look mostly like a group that has existed for quite sometime only with a different rhetorical emphasis for public relations purposes.
But, I’m willing to listen to alternate explanations. Why should the opinions of Tea Partiers differ at all from the general public (let alone the remainder of the Republicans) on these non-economic issues?
The “War on Christmas” construct seems to be rooted in some adherents’ (some Christians’) frustration at the behavior of non-adherents (non-compliant commercial retailers and random shoppers). Some would say Christianity had its best days and saw its growth explode across the civilized Western world when there really was a war on its traditions, for instance, in the first three centuries. As an outlaw religion, it spread without government or military backing and in spite of state-sponsored persecution for three centuries through the work of martyrs, saints, and humble communities of believers. A little humility and sainthood at Lowes may go a long way toward ending this frustration. People usually aren’t offended by humility and sainthood, and, hopefully the war can be won without a resort to martyrdom.
I regard the “(War on the) War on Christmas” itself — Tea Party association aside — as an assertion of cultural dominance – same as insisting on, for example, prayer in the legislature or graduation or whatnot.
I agree. When adherents assert religious cultural dominance, they divide the world into “us” and “them,” a self-defeating delusion.
And goes right back to what I said earlier: these people hate America. They vigorously oppose, with every ounce of their being, the whole purpose of its existence (however imperfectly it may have been implemented from the get-go–I don’t pretend that 1776 was some panacea of liberality): the freedom to live one’s life according to one’s own conscience and preferences rather than someone else’s.
So, do you have an explanation for why Tea Partiers, as an ostensibly economic movement, might have a stronger-than-usual perception that there is a “War on Christmas?”
Sure. It’s the same phenomenon where liberals are more likely to be vegetarians and listen to NPR. I don’t think that it would surprise a social scientist that politics, lifestyle, and other choices are correlated.
If you believe Robin Hanson, politics and most other human activities are all just “signaling”. I think that what you have discovered about the Tea Party could be some evidence of that, yes.
It doesn’t change the fact that Obama blew up the budget, and that we’re going bankrupt quite quickly. And the fact that most Tea Partiers voted for Ross Perot goes against your idea that this is really about opposing a Democrat.