Heather Cox Richardson: Christian nationalist authoritarianism vs. US

[erronis]

Last edited Sun Dec 28, 2025, 11:29 AM - Edit history (1)

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/december-27-2025

Over the Christmas holiday, the Trump administration threw its weight against the U.S. Constitution in favor of Christian nationalist authoritarianism.

. . .

And yet, on December 25, 2025, a religious holiday for many Christians, the Trump administration attacked that American principle to claim the U.S. is a Christian nation. As Ashley Ahn of the New York Times chronicled, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted: "The joyous message of Christmas is the hope of Eternal Life through Christ." The Labor Department posted: "Joy to the World. Let Earth Receive Her King."

On December 24, over a video of officials wishing Americans Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays, the Department of Homeland Security posted: "Christ is Born!" Over another video featuring iconic Christmas movies and scenes made up almost exclusively of white Americans and including several images of President Donald J. Trump, DHS posted: "Merry Christmas, America. We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior." On December 25, over a video of iconic American scenes with "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" playing, DHS posted: "Rejoice America, Christ is born!"

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted: "Merry Christmas to all. Today we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May His light bring peace, hope, and joy to you and your families."

. . .

On Christmas Day, Republican Indiana state senator Chris Garten posted AI images of himself punching, kicking, and body-slamming Santa Claus in front of the state capitol. His explanation for the images was that he was reacting to the "'fact' that the North Pole is trying to bring more bureaucratic overreach & unfunded mandates down the chimney disguised as 'Christmas cheer.'" "We The People run Indiana, not the bureaucrats," he wrote. "Take it back to the North Pole big guy."

. . .

[markodochartaigh]

1. Why all the mojibake in this text?

Mojibake (Japanese: 文字化け; IPA: [mod͡ʑibake], 'character transformation') is the garbled or gibberish text that is the result of text being decoded using an unintended character encoding.[1] The result is a systematic replacement of symbols with completely unrelated ones, often from a different writing system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojibake

[mwmisses4289]

3. Thanks for teaching me a new word.

I have seen that for years, never knew it had its own name.

[erronis]

4. I've just started seeing this while cutting and pasting into DU posts.

Probably a problem on my end but I don't know that I've changed my processes.

Thanks for calling this out!

[markodochartaigh]

5. Hmmm

And yet, on December 25, 2025, a religious holiday for many Christians, the Trump administration attacked that American principle to claim the U.S. is a Christian nation. As Ashley Ahn of the New York Times chronicled, Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted: “The joyous message of Christmas is the hope of Eternal Life through Christ.” The Labor Department posted: “Joy to the World. Let Earth Receive Her King.”

On December 24, over a video of officials wishing Americans Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Holidays, the Department of Homeland Security posted: “Christ is Born!” Over another video featuring iconic Christmas movies and scenes made up almost exclusively of white Americans and including several images of President Donald J. Trump, DHS posted: “Merry Christmas, America. We are blessed to share a nation and a Savior.” On December 25, over a video of iconic American scenes with “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” playing, DHS posted: “Rejoice America, Christ is born!”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted: “Merry Christmas to all. Today we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. May His light bring peace, hope, and joy to you and your families.”

[markodochartaigh]

6. Maybe so, I tried copying and pasting from the included link

and it seemed to come out alright.

[erronis]

7. Thanks. I'm using Firefox with a bunch of extensions on Linux.

Sounds like a good research project for me today.

[CrispyQ]

2. I'm sick of all Christians except the silent ones.

I participate in a workout & motivation Facebook page & the Christians took over last week. Post after post thanking their God for motivating them or whatthefuckever. I only read a few & alerted on them. The general consensus was, start your own "we thank God for our workout motivation" page & don't hijack our secular one. Went back a few days later & the mods had deleted them all. I don't mind if in the course of a post some people say how the Lord inspired them, but to make OPs that are more about God & Jesus than working out is just fucking rude. And so many Christians are just that—rude. We don't come to your house, uninvited, early Saturday morning.