In an election year, it stands to reason that assorted partisans are going to look for every available opportunity to take their opponents down a notch. But that doesn’t mean every political dispute during an election season will have merit and value.
Take this year’s political fight over Easter, for example.
In recent days, the right falsely accused the Biden White House of banning religious themes from the annual children’s egg decorating contest — despite the fact that the American Egg Board, a group that supports the White House Egg Roll, has used the same guidance for years, including throughout Donald Trump’s term.
Republicans also slammed President Joe Biden for issuing a “Transgender Day of Visibility” proclamation. The Democrat did the same thing in previous years — the day is always March 31 — but since this year’s Transgender Day of Visibility coincided with Easter, conservatives complained bitterly for reasons that didn’t make a lot of sense. NBC News reported:
Trump’s campaign accused Biden, a Roman Catholic, of being insensitive to religion, and fellow Republicans piled on. “We call on Joe Biden’s failing campaign and White House to issue an apology to the millions of Catholics and Christians across America who believe tomorrow is for one celebration only — the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s press secretary. She assailed what she called the Biden administration’s “years-long assault on the Christian faith.”
So, a few things.
First, if it seemed odd for the Trump campaign to draw a distinction between Catholics and Christians, it’s because it was odd.
Second, the idea that the Biden administration has engaged in a “years-long assault on the Christian faith” is absurd.
Third, sometimes occasions fall on the same day. It’s not worth making a fuss about calendar coincidences. Relatedly, people can celebrate more than one thing: Plenty of Americans celebrated NCAA basketball games yesterday; it doesn’t mean they slighted Easter.
But of particular interest was Team Trump’s insistence that Easter 2024 should focus exclusively on “the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” I can’t help but wonder whether the former president himself received that memo.
Biden issued an official statement in celebration of Easter, for example, which read in part, “Easter reminds us of the power of hope and the promise of Christ’s Resurrection. As we gather with loved ones, we remember Jesus’ sacrifice. We pray for one another and cherish the blessing of the dawn of new possibilities. And with wars and conflict taking a toll on innocent lives around the world, we renew our commitment to work for peace, security, and dignity for all people. From our family to yours, happy Easter and may God bless you.” His likely Republican rival, meanwhile, issued a written statement of his own on Easter, which began, “HAPPY EASTER TO ALL, INCLUDING CROOKED AND CORRUPT PROSECUTORS AND JUDGES THAT ARE DOING EVERYTHING POSSIBLE TO INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, AND PUT ME IN PRISON.” It was part of a weird, conspiratorial, all-caps, 165-word run-on sentence — which made no references to “the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” but did include excessive whining from a suspected felon about his perceived foes. It came against a backdrop in which Trump added Bibles to his grifting efforts and used his social media platform to refer readers to an article that referred to the former president as “the Chosen One.” The apparent point of the right’s offensive against the White House was to push the idea that the presumptive GOP nominee somehow has a political advantage over Biden on matters of faith. Reality tells a very different story.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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