A Newsweek article posted on Christmas Eve featured three university professors alleging that President Donald Trump is using Christmas to advance white nationalism, much like the Nazis did in 1930s Germany.

According to the “experts” interviewed by Newsweek’s Cristina Maza, Trump vowing to end the “war on Christmas” and promising his supporters they can say “Merry Christmas” again is just a “dog whistle” for white identity politics.

“I see such invocations of Christmas as a kind of cypher, what some would call a dog whistle,” Richard King, a Washington State University professor told Newsweek. “It does not appear to be intolerant or extreme, but to attentive audiences it speaks volumes about identity and belonging—who and what are fully American.”

One professor, Joe Perry, claims that Trump is employing tactics used by the Nazis to encourage anti-Semitism. The Nazis rewrote Christmas carols and politicized the holiday to promote exclusion and fascism.

Perry, who is a professor at Georgia State University, alleged that the “far right” has used the war on Christmas in order to warn people against multiculturalism and secularization.

“The far right’s engagement in the ‘war on Christmas’ explicitly posits that there is one single true or correct Christmas. The holiday’s true nature is somehow under threat from outsiders and liberals who act as forces of degradation, multiculturalism and secularization,” Perry said.

Maza, the author of the piece, admits that Trump has never called for genocide like Nazis did. However, Maza defers to the university “experts” who claim that the way Trump talks about Christmas “coexists with reemerging white identity politics.”

“Committed white nationalists love Trump’s bring back Christmas campaign almost as much as evangelicals,” Dr. Randy Blazak, a sociology professor, told Newsweek. “His followers see this as gospel and a rebuking of multiculturalism and political correctness, and the growing influence of Jews, Muslims, atheists and other non-WASPs.”

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