Should we respect people who want to use “Merry Christmas” as a weapon?

I have my own reasons for being upset with President Donald J. Trump and his attempt recently to use the upcoming winter holidays as another weapon in his ideological war for the mood of the nation.

Would the Macy's department store on State Street offend the presidential sensibilities for winter holiday celebrations. Photographs by Gregory Tejeda

It’s that Trump is just as guilty of watering down the Christmas spirit as those people he thinks he’s lambasting.

FOR TO ME, part of the problem with people losing the meaning or point of the Christmas holiday is that we start taking up its trappings so early. We’re not even at Halloween yet, but there are some people already preparing for the onslaught of Santa Clauses, reindeer and snowmen.

Trump, by bringing up this issue so early, is just as bad!

It’s too early to be thinking about Christmas, particularly since it’s still too early to be giving the Thanksgiving holiday much regard.

That bothers me just as much as the fact that he’s trying to turn the concept of “Merry Christmas” into a weapon that people hurl at those who happen not to share in their beliefs.

SOMEHOW, I CAN’T help but think the true concept of the birth of Christ, with all the significance it carries to those of Christian religious faiths, is grossly disrespected by using such an image to taunt other people.

Does the holiday menorah in Chicago have to go in a Trump-inspired world?

For the record, Trump made his holiday-related rant to a gathering of the Values Voter Summit, put together by the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. He let it be known he’s all for “stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values,” which is how he wants to perceive those people who use “Happy Holidays” as an all-purpose greeting to accommodate everybody’s particular winter holiday.

Odd that an attempt to include everybody is somehow seen as a taunt by those who want their own perceptions to prevail over all in our society, and our society to dominate over all that exist on this Planet Earth.

Sufficient religious display for people about to embark on airline flights?

Which makes me wonder if life is ever found to exist on other planets throughout the galaxy, will the people in support of this Age of Trump that we’re now in try to start up a crusade to ensure that alien races acknowledge and properly worship the so-called superiority of Donald J. Trump?

THE WHOLE EFFORT sounds absurd when you put it in those terms. Then again, absurdity has never stopped the Trump types from spouting out their latest ridiculous rhetoric.

Including the president’s own desire to make “Merry Christmas” a priority. Will this rank up equally with making sure those ingrate pro football players stand at attention during the National Anthem? Or is that article in The New Yorker where Trump criticizes Vice President Mike Pence evidence that he's already moved on to something else?

Does it all mean that Trump has the attention span of a gnat, and has become bored with that issue and needs a constant influx of confusion and mayhem to keep himself amused?

Sufficient holiday adornment for our govt. buildings?

The whole while ignoring the real problems that confront our society and our planet. Which he probably thinks of as boring details that could better be delegated to someone else so he’ll have time for another Mar-A-Lago-style weekend with golf.

BUT BACK TO the Christmas crusade, which may also be an effort at misdirection on the part of Trump, who was getting some criticism for even attending the gathering of religious-oriented individuals.

Trump is the first U.S. president to ever attend the group’s gatherings, and some activist-types were quick to point out that many of the people inclined to attend were those who use their religious beliefs to justify their white supremacist attitudes towards life.

As in “God Hates You” because you’re not a white Southern male – an attitude I have trouble accepting as being a part of any legitimate religious faith.

Just as I can’t believe that anybody seriously believes in using “Merry Christmas” as their winter holiday weapon of choice, when the attitude they’re really expressing with such talk is something more along the lines of, “Bah, Humbug!”

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