Most Americans likely spent their Christmas enjoying some long-overdue time away from the internet with family and friends. But the left-wing virtue signalers and keyboard warriors would have no such thing. Instead, they spent the day losing their minds over an X post from the Department of Homeland Security acknowledging the religious nature of the holiday.
Here was the post that launched a thousand angry liberal tirades, which DHS released at 11:18 a.m. on December 24: “Merry Christmas, America. We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior.”
That’s it. A simple declaration of the Christian truth of Christmas was enough to send the liberal outrage mob into total panic mode.
Journalist James Surowiecki had this to say: “A government agency endorsing Christianity is blatantly, comically unconstitutional. But blatant unconstitutionality is par for the course for this administration.” Notorious neoconservative and Never-Trumper Bill Kristol, meanwhile, declared the post, which included a 90-second video of iconic Christmas footage, to be “un-American” and “un-Christian.” (Yes, that’s right – Kristol’s Trump Derangement Syndrome has apparently become so severe that he now believes declaring the truth of Christmas to be “un-Christian.”)
Progressive politician and writer Aaron Regunberg posted, “Man I hate Nazis” – and then promptly blocked replies to his comment. Retired journalism professor and author Seth Abramson highlighted the “and a Savior” portion of the DHS post and called it “anti-American hatred of the United States and its founding documents and all its people and all its traditions.” (He also blocked replies.) Former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh – now an avowed Trump critic – said DHS should be sued. MSNBC host Catherine Rampell posted, “RIP the First Amendment.”
Of course, the DHS post is in no way a violation of the First Amendment, which states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Anyone who claims that a government agency wishing the country a Merry Christmas and issuing a simple declaration of Christian faith is akin to Congress making a law establishing a state religion is either a liar or hopelessly stupid. The post falls well within the scope of historical acknowledgements of faith from government actors, including presidential proclamations, speeches, and declarations from Congress.
Even a cursory glance at American history reveals that the Founding Fathers had a deep Christian faith, which they believed not only should but must underpin the government they established. As John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
The founding generation understood that the American experiment in self-government was the culmination of 2,000 years of Western Civilization – a civilization built upon a foundation of Christianity. Not just Christian values, but Christian faith is defined by a belief in one supreme God who became flesh in the form of Jesus Christ to die on the cross, rise again on the third day, and save humanity from sin. Inalienable rights, representative government, free speech, checks and balances, rule of law – everything that makes America what it is stems from a conscious effort to create a society and government that advances Biblical principles.
The purpose of the First Amendment’s establishment clause was to prevent destructive squabbles between and among Catholics and various Protestant sects that would inevitably arise if the fledgling United States government adopted a state religious institution like the Church of England. The First Amendment was never intended to eradicate religion from public life; to the contrary, it protects the expression of faith by public officials and entities.
Successive generations of American leaders have understood this – even some liberals. President Franklin Roosevelt sent a Bible with a personalized note to every member of the armed forces on the eve of World War II. President Bill Clinton’s 2001 Christmas message stated, “The beloved Christmas story itself is a story of light for, as the Gospel of John tells us, Jesus came into the world as ‘the true light’ that illumines all humankind.” During the lighting of the National Christmas tree in 2016, President Barack Obama similarly made reference to “our Savior.”
When these Democrats issued virtually identical proclamations to the one just issued by DHS, no one batted an eye. So, why now? Why is it that liberals chose to make this their final cause célèbre of 2025?
One explanation is that the left is now so blinded by hatred for Trump that they reflexively oppose anything he or his administration does. This would seem to explain some of the reaction – particularly statements that wishing the country a Merry Christmas on Christmas Eve makes someone a “Nazi.”
But the level of malice and vitriol in the responses reveals something deeper about the modern left. They are not just anti-Trump – they are anti-Christian. They hate Christianity, and they hate Christians who dare to express their faith publicly. This is why liberals are also so adamant about prosecuting Christians who pray outside abortion clinics, and why they are so determined to weaponize the government against churches, Christian charities, and religious schools.
The left does not just want to eradicate Christian faith from public life; they want to bully and demoralize Christians into abandoning their faith entirely.
Explaining why the left is so determined to destroy Christianity would take far more words than I have at my disposal here. But essentially, it comes down to Biblical teachings being a direct threat to the left’s secular religion. The way the Bible instructs people to live their lives is in direct conflict with political progressivism and cultural “woke” ideology, which basically teaches that individual desires, no matter how destructive or disordered, are to be indulged and celebrated at any cost.
To the left, DHS’s Christmas post is “un-American” in the sense that it threatens what they want America to be by reminding the country of what America has always been de facto if not de jure: a Christian country ruled by a government operating within the guardrails of Christian teachings filled with mostly Christian people – who still protect the right of others to worship freely.
What Americans should understand amid the fallout from this “scandal” is that the battle for the future of their nation is not just about Republican vs. Democrat or liberal vs. conservative. For citizens who believe in the goodness of America, for anyone who wants to preserve the traditional values that built this country, it is a spiritual war against an evil, malevolent force seeking to destroy what prior generations have built and replace it with something entirely new and alien.
Heading into 2026, these are the new terms that the left has written. Anyone who hopes to preserve some semblance of the America they know for their children and grandchildren would do well to understand these rules of engagement for the conflict they are now a part of.
Shane Harris is the Editor in Chief of AMAC Newsline. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
