Nick Givas on December 26, 2017
New York Times political reporter Ken Vogel believes the war on Christmas never existed and was created by right wing political strategists and the Fox News Channel to stir up the Republican base.
“This has been a long front in the culture war that we’ve seen that the right has used to great political effect, suggesting that somehow President Obama, but liberals more generally have clamped down on expressions of religious observance,” Vogel said Tuesday on “MSNBC Live.” “Clearly it’s not true.”
Vogel accused President Donald Trump of using Christmas as a tool to pander to his voter base, and said he was being aided in his mission by Fox News pundits.
“It is something that the president embraced during his campaign to great effect to sort of demonstrate that he is the lead culture warrior. It’s something that his base really eats up, and we see him returning to it now on Christmas, Vogel said. “You don’t have to look a lot further than Fox News to see that it is something that the right has embraced.”
Host Craig Melvin played a montage of former President Barack Obama saying the words “Merry Christmas,” and offered it as proof that no hostility towards Christianity exists in today’s society.
“It really is quite bizarre that so many people would believe something when they are introduced to evidence time and time again to the contrary,” Melvin said. “But these are the days in which we live I suppose.”
