WHAT DID YOU DO IN THE "WAR ON CHRISTMAS" BEFORE YOU RAN FOR PRESIDENT, DONALD?

The Hill, in a desperate search for right-wing eyeballs, posts this fact-challenged headline:

With Trump, conservatives hope for ally in 'War on Christmas'

Memo to The Hill: THERE IS NO WAR ON CHRISTMAS. Christmas is thriving in America. Christmas starts thriving every year in America well before Thanksgiving. There was never a war, or if there ever was, Christmas won. Bigly.

But to Trump, we have always been at war with EastPC:

Conservatives are hoping that Donald Trump will be a strong ally in the “War on Christmas.”

The president-elect, who repeatedly promised his supporters “we’re going to say ‘merry Christmas’ again,” made opposition to political correctness a tenet of his campaign. For some Trump voters, the generic, non-religious greeting “happy holidays” -- a phrase often employed by the Obama administration -- exemplifies that PC culture.

“I’m a good Christian. If I become president, we’re gonna be saying ‘merry Christmas’ at every store,” Trump said in Iowa last year. “You can leave ‘happy holidays’ at the corner.”

Since Election Day, Trump has kept up the same tune.

“President-elect Trump loves Christmas and makes a point of proudly saying ‘Merry Christmas’ every chance he gets,” his transition team said in a November statement....

"You can say again 'merry Christmas' because Donald Trump is now the president," Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager, said on "Hannity" Tuesday evening. "You can say it again. It's OK to say."

I just want to take this moment to remind you that Donald Trump did not always feel this way about "happy holidays." Here's some of what I discovered when I looked into this back in August 2015:

@shanesgranny Thanks and Happy Holidays.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 27, 2012

Okay, that's just one tweet. But then there's this, from the Trump at Home Tumblr page:



... And this, from the Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York:



And while the image is no longer available, I see this in a 2006 posting to a message board for casino chip collectors:



Which must be the same chip referred to in this 2007 newsletter from the Atlantic City Casino Collectibles Club:



And then there are these chips, from the Trump Marina in Atlantic City. Note the legend on the first one: "Have a wild holiday!" -- yes, "holiday," not "Christmas":

Remember all this when you read the following in The Hill:

Throughout his campaign, Trump fans lauded him as someone not afraid to fight back against political correctness, including floating a boycott of Starbucks over its secular holiday cups.

The Hill cites several people who treat the war on Christmas as a real thing -- Fox's Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson among them -- but leaves the entire case on the other side to be handled by the Reverend Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Lynn expresses confidence that Trump can't decide what people say or do:

However, the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, points out that “obviously the president has no power to determine what holiday greetings are used in stores and shops.” ...

“Nothing says freedom more than a president telling the public what holidays to celebrate and exactly how to celebrate them,” he said in an email. “But I'm mollified by the fact that Trump’s promise is meaningless because, thankfully, he has no power to enforce it.”

I disagree. This is a man who can send one tweet and inspire many, many acolytes to issue death threats against his targets. This is a man who has the power to make stock prices plummet with one targeted 140-character IED. Do you think he won't use that power in the so-called war on Christmas, given how effectively it will rally the base?

If he doesn't abuse his power this way in the next few weeks, he will when he's president. Count on it.