You’ve seen the memes on social media and heard the loud complaints, usually coming from the same partisans. It even showed up on Saturday Night Live’s cold open this past weekend – the tired, old, and false claim that “they,” whoever “they” are, but the implication is always that it’s the “libs” and Democrats who are responsible for it — won’t let us say “Merry Christmas” any more.
Donald Trump, as president, even added his own absurd twist to it. He took credit for bringing “Merry Christmas” back.
To be sure, SNL was mocking both claims. But plenty of people still believe the Republican falsehood that we can’t say “Merry Christmas” any more, even as they simultaneously believe Trump restored it, while at the same time also believing we still can’t say it.
Whether any of those claims are true or false, of course, is not the point for those making them. They are just more falsehoods in the circus parade of falsehoods Republicans have marched around the public square over the past decade, all of which have a single purpose: to make their fellow partisans angry and outraged at the “libs” and Democrats.
To be clear, the Republican narrative about a supposed prohibition against saying “Merry Christmas” is 100% hogwash.
No one banned saying “Merry Christmas.” It is alive and well, unfettered. It is has never faded.
I ought to know. I’ve had a front-row seat for the nation’s celebration of Christmas for more than three decades. To a very small degree, I’ve even had...
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