Happy pumpkins
Trump will save us all from the treacherous war on the word…”Thanksgiving”?
Conservative media and some Republicans have for years claimed that Christmas is under attack, turning some people’s decision to say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” during the month of December into a culture war touchstone to try to spark outrage on the right. Trump has embraced the “war on Christmas” narrative, and now he’s taking it a step further: he’s claiming liberals are out to get Thanksgiving, too.
At a rally in Florida on Tuesday, the president confoundingly reassured supporters that he wouldn’t let the “radical left” change Thanksgiving’s name. “As we gather for Thanksgiving, you know, some people want to change the name Thanksgiving. They don’t want to use the term Thanksgiving,” Trump said. He later continued: “People have different ideas why it shouldn’t be called Thanksgiving, but everybody in this room, I know, loves the name Thanksgiving. And we’re not changing.”
Personally, I think it should be named Pizzahut, but a much larger faction prefers Route 518.
I suppose what the confused belligerent fool is “thinking” of is the fact that the holiday celebrates the moderate success of a group of people who set up camp without invitation on the coast of what is now called Massachusetts, and that some of us are rude enough to point out that there were already people there and they weren’t consulted.
The president has leaned into culture wars often throughout his tenure, aware that it’s a way to rally his base and sow division. Declaring out of the blue that there’s a movement on the left to change the name of Thanksgiving is another example of that. But the episode also highlights the president’s dismissiveness of issues with some real cultural and social weight. While Thanksgiving’s name isn’t particularly controversial, its history is.
But that’s the problem, you see – it’s political correctness run mad. Why shouldn’t people bounce into other people’s neighborhoods without an invitation? Unless of course they’re from Mexico or points south – then it’s a whole different ball game.
Pass the guacamole.
If this is referring to anything (questionable) it’s how some people commemorate Thanksgiving as a National Day of Mourning, or he’s confused it with wanting to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day.
Or he’s just “thinking” it’s exactly like “the war on Xmas” or simply is “the war on Xmas”…not being compos mentis enough to grasp that the point about “Christmas” is the CHRIST bit (despite the fact that absolutely no one pronounces the word that way) and that “Thanksgiving” doesn’t have any CHRIST in it in the first place. Pretend war on Xmas is a religious whine, while Thanksgiving is not in any way a religious holiday, no matter how godbothering the Plymouth puritans were.
I agree, but I’m still dreading coming across 2019’s entry in the perennial parade of “who do atheists give thanks to, hur hur hur!” pieces.
Kevin Drum had a good post about this at Mother Jones.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/11/heres-where-trump-got-the-idea-that-some-people-want-to-change-the-name-of-thanksgiving/
Yeah, stupid joke. Thanks to the farmers for growing the feast. Thanks to the cook for cooking the beast. Thanks to the baker for baking the pie. Thanks to Serta for the mattress on which I lie.
Thank the people who actually do the work, not the bloody God who sits up in his heaven smiting people who don’t waste time scraping and groveling him, worshiping him while their house burns down or their children drown. If God actually existed, he would have a lot to answer for.
Re #5, I love that rhyme, and may “borrow” it.
I like the idea of being thankful to people. Being thankful for things, with no object for the thanks, seems incoherent to me.
A local (conservative) Alabama reporter, whose job includes writing announcements for holidays (what they are, what events, what’s closed or open), introduced today’s holiday:
“Today is a state and national holiday thanking God for the many blessings that He has bestowed on us and our country.”
Clearly for him the holiday is religious. I suspect most holidays are religious to him.