Merry Christmas!

And the power of prayer

Lucas Kunce Dec 25

It’s a good thing Santa came last night, because I felt a little naughty and even rebellious putting Merry Christmas in the subject line today. I would venture to guess it made more than a few people look twice or feel uneasy when they saw it, too. Now I know not everyone who reads this is going to agree with me, but I think that’s a problem for Democrats.

Democrats have been conditioned to reflexively cringe at expressions like “Merry Christmas” or “I’m praying for you.”

I saw it myself on the campaign trail over and over again. Older folks, often women and usually over 75, would come up to me in the crowd after events to say how grateful they were for what I was doing. They would say things like God bless you. They would take my hand, hold it the entire time they told me what they had to say, and finish by sincerely telling me that they were praying for me and my family.

As a guy who was brought up in church — not to brag or anything, but I did win the Sunday school attendance award a few times up through high school — I don’t remember ever thinking it was strange.

First Communion with my parents

But every time one of these conversations happened, people nearby would awkwardly shift around, look the other way, or give each other knowing looks. Looks that said “what a relic” or “this old lady doesn’t get it.”

But if we take a step back, those old ladies are more in touch than anyone who was wincing at them. Their beliefs aren’t actually relics. There are a lot of people in this country, of all ages, with sincere religious beliefs.

For example, 72% of Americans believe in the power of prayer.

So when people say they are praying for you and they really mean it, that's something special, not something awkward or controversial. And we should treat it that way.

Along those lines, I’ve gotten so many emails through the Substack and campaign address wishing me happy holidays (thank you, by the way!) and there have been notably few, if any, that said Merry Christmas. I don’t think that’s bad. I think saying Happy Holidays is nice.

But I also think saying Merry Christmas is nice and doesn’t have to be treated like something alien. It's not the equivalent of pushing religion on someone else. Normal people say Merry Christmas.

I bet you 100% of Republican emails going out today use those words. You can think they’re being cynical by doing that, or proactively engaging in a culture war. And maybe some of them are. But, again, out here in the Midwest, us normal people say Merry Christmas.

So to the average person, which party do you think comes across as out of touch and seeking a culture war on the whole Merry Christmas issue?

Especially in light of the fact that Christmas is literally everywhere from October to December these days. Ornaments, trees, themed candy, sweaters and other apparel. Decorations galore. Try to listen to a radio station or go into a store without hearing four different artists’ takes on “Last Christmas” or ”Silent Night” (did you know that there are 135,317 different recorded versions of Silent Night?).

With that type of Christmas saturation, how can a phrase about it be taboo?

On this as well as even more high stakes issues, the Democratic Party has often gone from a well-intentioned place of inclusivity to inadvertently becoming a party of exclusion. A party where the members have to know and use the right code words to participate. A party that judges other Americans as insensitive or lacking political correctness for expressing love and compassion in the best way they know how. Whether that’s praying for you or saying Merry Christmas.

It's obviously not just around things like Christmas or prayer, either. We’ve talked a lot about President Musk and the influence he exerted on the bill to keep the government running. But let's talk about an area where Democrats chose to flex their influence on that bill: code words.

First, though, I do want to acknowledge that Democrats worked hard to get things into that bill to help regular people, which is great. But they also apparently spent a lot of political capital and effort to jam the following language changes into it:

• “low-skilled adults” into “adults with foundational skill needs” (Section 111, Page 958)

• “out of school youth” is now “opportunity youth” (Section 111, Page 958)

• and “criminal offenders” must now be referred to as “justice-involved individuals” (Section 208, Page 1400)

Is that what we were all hoping and praying(!) our elected officials were fighting for in that bill?

There are, I’m sure, billions of articles on the topic of wokeness, so I’m not going to mess around with that here, especially today.

Instead, I just want to highlight that Democrats are supposed to be the big tent party. The party where anyone can feel welcome. But their attempts, even well-intentioned, have had the opposite effect in many cases.

I know a lot of people here might not see it that way. But I just want to add that this isn’t my opinion, this is an observation. It is something people told me over and over again on the campaign trail. A lot of people just don’t feel like the Democratic Party is welcoming to them anymore. And that was a real barrier for our campaign and, I suspect, Democrats all around the country.

As for my opinion and recommendation? If Democrats want to stop losing people and become the big tent party again, let’s just chill a little bit.

Accept people’s prayers and Merry Christmas’s for what they are: good things. Embrace them. And if you’re comfortable sending some prayers or Christmas cheer back or doing it proactively? Just go for it.

And while we’re on the topic of Christmas cheer… if you want to send a little my way, please take a minute to leave a comment or share this Substack with a friend!

Until next time.

— Lucas

PS — I almost forgot! I have a Christmas present for you. A little reminder that we are not alone in suffering through the culture wars here in America. Check out the comments and furor around this Christmas ad by a UK company called Boots. Wild stuff.