I wish I could write something positive given the time of year. I really do. Normally I’m downright cheerful around the holiday season. This is often apparent in my writing; I can prove it.
Sorry, though. For 2025, I just can’t. We have a president who is a worse Christmas villain than Ebenezer Scrooge, the Grinch, and those thieving German terrorists from the original “Die Hard” all rolled into one. So I suppose I am going to have to point out exactly how un-Christmassy Donald Trump really is.
Well, we have to start somewhere, so if you’re the type who thinks we need to keep the “Christ” in “Christmas,” first, reevaluate your entire existence. Second, look at literally anything Jesus Christ said in the Bible and tie yourself into knots trying to align that with anything whatsoever that Trump has said or done as president. Or, ya know, read the nativity story about how Jesus was a migrant himself. He didn’t wind up spending his first night in that manger for funsies.
You don’t even have to go into the New Testament though to find out that God is not down with being dicks to people from other places. One of many examples, from Leviticus 19:34: “You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself.” Boy, that’s very unambiguous!
It’s official: Trump’s horrible, dehumanizing, untargeted immigration crackdown is not very Christmassy.
Well, we all know that generosity is a big part of the Christmas spirit. After all, that’s how Scrooge finally turned it around after a lifetime of being a cheap, miserly bastard.
Oh, shit, the DOGE cuts to USAID have already killed 600,000 people as a result of preventable infectious diseases and malnutrition, two-thirds of them children, with millions more deaths on the horizon unless funding is restored.
Trumpers might say (even though it’s not very Christmassy) there was no choice but to cut USAID. Yet this funding was only costing an average U.S. taxpayer around 17 cents per day. And cutting it has done absolutely nothing to reign in government spending. Actually, the national debt continues to hit record highs and has increased faster under Trump than at almost any other time in American history.
OK, gilding his own surroundings at taxpayer expense, taking bribes from foreign Islamic fundamentalist regimes, overseeing the investiture of Elon Musk as the richest person ever, shamelessly hawking Bibles with his signature in them as though he was the author, selling pardons, his stupid-looking hats, and worst of all influence through cryptocurrency for personal gain … is it Opposite Christmas this year or what?
Symbolism is the least important thing about Trump’s approach to Christmas when people are dying and suffering and the integrity of the United States is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Still, symbolism matters. His supporters applaud because he sometimes says he supports Christians and throws a few Christmas trees up at the White House after illegally demolishing the entire wing where most of the Christmas decorations used to go.
But Trump’s reaction to the murders of beloved filmmaker Rob Reiner (who directed “The Princess Bride”) and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, the week before Christmas pretty much says it all. Trump blasted the departed Rob Reiner, and blamed him for causing his own brutal murder, which Trump basically said he brought on himself through his criticism of this administration.
Compared to this, an Ebenezer Scrooge administration would be a Christmas miracle. With Trump, we are so far past the Scrooge level of humbug, I don’t think the ghost of Herman Cain dragging the chain of Godfather’s Pizza boxes that he forged in life could turn this around with the help of three time-traveling Christmas spirits.
I guess try to find some Christmas cheer where you can. Have a candy cane. Drink a hot toddy. Find some comfort in the ones you love, if they haven’t been unjustly deported yet.
Jonathan Wolf is a civil litigator and author of Your Debt-Free JD (affiliate link). He has taught legal writing, written for a wide variety of publications, and made it both his business and his pleasure to be financially and scientifically literate. Any views he expresses are probably pure gold, but are nonetheless solely his own and should not be attributed to any organization with which he is affiliated. He wouldn’t want to share the credit anyway. He can be reached at jon_wolf@hotmail.com.
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