There has never been a Trollmaster like President Trump, and there never will be again. No competitor is even close; his record stands alone. Whether or not you believe there was coordination behind the faith-filled Christmas messages from Trump officials blanketing social media on Thursday like a dusting of freshly fallen snow, it’s clear the President captured another 80/20 issue and dragged the Democrats and their media allies back out into the antiseptic sunshine.
Media’s predictable shrieks about “norms and customs” accomplished exactly one thing: they lit the fuse of debate and exposed the brittle, low-grade quality of corporate media. Contrast this week’s breathless angst over a few Merry Christmases and references to the Savior with a Boston Herald op-ed from 2019, coolly titled, “Presidents invoking religion is a part of American history.”
The Herald reminded readers that Democrat icon Franklin D. Roosevelt personally sent a Bible to every single service member at the outset of World War II— each bearing an inscription above the President’s own signature:
January 25, 1941
To the Armed Forces:
As Commander-in-Chief I take pleasure in commending the reading of the Bible to all who serve in the armed forces of the United States. Throughout the centuries men of many faiths and diverse origins have found in the Sacred Book words of wisdom, counsel and inspiration. It is a fountain of strength and now, as always, an aid in attaining the highest aspirations of the human soul.
After watching the allergic reaction from corporate media this week to a few encouraging Christmas tweets, can you imagine how crushed and terrified the delicate snowflakes on the left would be if War Secretary Hegseth sent all our service members new Bibles, and encouraged them to read it regardless of their personal faith?
In his Second Inaugural Address (1865), President Lincoln openly suggested bloody Civil War casualties were divine judgment for slavery, quoting Matthew verbatim: “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.” Today’s press corps would run that under “Theocracy Alert” and demand a presidential cognitive assessment.
How quickly the media forgets that, when Dwight D. Eisenhower took office, the national motto was E Pluribus Unum. Eisenhower changed it to In God We Trust. So. The Pledge of Allegiance also acquired the words “Under God” during Eisenhower’s term. If something like that happened today, the “No Kings” crowd would have to print a whole new line of t-shirts.
In 1950, President Harry S. Truman launched a national Bible-reading campaign and warned that America could not survive without moral and religious grounding. In 1950, he declared, “The fundamental basis of this Nation’s law was given to Moses on the Mount.” It is difficult to imagine the panicked delirium such a presidential declaration would provoke today.
I mean it, literally. Try to imagine President Trump launching a Truman-style national Bible-reading campaign: Read it!! Tremendous book! Best seller for thousands of years! Incredibly durable! The best book of all time!
I think he should do it. The meltdown would be better entertainment than the hysterics following his first election in 2016.
I thought it would be helpful to gather these few additional examples to make the point (once again) about America’s rock-solid Christian roots, since even a few of our readers in comments questioned the country’s religious history. That’s how well the left has promoted secularism. But we must never forget.
“We are trying to do a futile thing,” President Woodrow Wilson once observed, “if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about.”
Indeed.
