Americans misunderstand December 25 even as they celebrate it. One example is the song “I’ll Be Home For Christmas,” which is commonly perceived as a nostalgic and heartwarming ode when it’s one of the saddest pieces of music imaginable, a tearful tune about someone not being able to make it back to their loved ones. The crushing line (“If only in my dreams”) seems to have been psychologically elided the way the suicide threat tucked in neatly at the end of Sinatra’s plucky Horatio Alger classic “That’s Life” was. It’s not so much about embracing hope as willful ignorance. 

Of course, the Fox News “War on Christmas” is a much larger philosophical disconnect, where non-Christians are somehow a threat to a Christian country. It’s just another scattershot reaction to the crumbling of the American middle class stoked by Roger Ailes’ hot-air machine. The formerly privileged know something they used to have has been stolen from them and assume, for some reason, that it involves Christ-ified consumerism.

As the tug of tinsel goes, so does U.S. politics, an unholy rabble bent on crucifying the truth. Objective information is beside the point. It all depends on what you wish for.

From Edward Luce at the Financial Times:

Once upon a time, Americans settled around the television to enjoy a white Christmas together. Nowadays, it seems, they are too entrenched on opposite sides of the “war on Christmas”, or commoditising it to oblivion, to remember Bing Crosby’s crooning. To say the US is a civilisation divided may strike some as an overstatement

For the most part, the country still speaks one language. Black and white, straight and gay, Jewish and Muslim all flock to the latest Star Wars movie. Interest in the Oscars and the Super Bowl obliterates sociological distinction. So too does fear of economic insecurity. These things unite most Americans.

Yet the things that divide the country are growing. If you listen to the Republican presidential debate, one message overrides all. Conservatives do not just disagree with President Barack Obama — they hate him profoundly. When asked if they would back a Donald Trump nomination, even the most moderate Republican says anyone would be better than this “feckless, weakling” president, to quote Chris Christie, the New Jersey governor.

Likewise, if you ask a liberal about today’s Republicans, it does not take long before the word “stupid” is used. People who support Mr Trump are idiots. People who oppose him must be snobs. The two sides neither speak to each other, nor obtain their “information” from the same outlets. Facts are what you feel comfortable believing. No one in your social group is likely to challenge you.

Is the idea of America as a republic of shared values under threat?•