Last updated on April 2nd, 2024 at 11:38 am
If you somehow managed to escape the torrent of conservative hysterics and outrage about President Biden’s Easter Egg rules, congratulations, you have made some really exceptional life choices.
For the rest of us, you couldn’t miss the noise. Conservative outlets like Fox News and the Daily Caller spent the weekend in hysterics over a flyer noting 45 year old rules about an Easter egg decorating contest. You see, the rules ban “questionable content, religious symbols, overtly religious themes, or partisan political statements.”
Ex-president Donald Trump shared the Fox News article on Truth Social, even though the rule was in place during his administration, too. But the truth has no place here, in the conservative echo chamber of disinformation and performative outrage.
Donald Trump, Jr got in on the show, writing on Twitter, “Biden is banning religious symbols from Easter celebrations at the White House, while flying the trans flag and declaring Easter Sunday to be ‘Trans Visibility Day.’ This is the left’s new religion. They want people worshiping the trans flag instead of God. They must be stopped.”
Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) claimed over a screengrab of the Fox News article on Twitter that President Biden “bans Christian symbols from the White House Easter egg roll. Disgraceful.”
Newt Gingrich wasn’t going to let the moment go by without his trademark disingenuous outrage:
The takeaway from all of this was that a bunch of people spent Easter weekend lying:
Easter outrage 2024
And sure, liberals got upset a lot during the Trump administration, sometimes even over things that weren’t actually happening. But Democratic leaders and former presidents didn’t lead the charge over things that were business as usual. The outrage over policy “disagreements” like deliberate separation of families at the border was genuine and based on principles the U.S. is supposed to uphold. These kinds of Trump policies led to a fear that then generalized, given the constant horror of those four years.
The American Egg Board, which supports the White House Egg Roll, was forced to say in a statement reported by NBC News, “The American Egg Board has been a supporter of the White House Easter Egg Roll for over 45 years and the guideline language referenced in recent news reports has consistently applied to the board since its founding, across administrations.”
The White House even had to weigh in as the histrionics reached unbearable levels.
*Fyi on all the misleading swirl re White House and Easter: the American Egg Board flyer’s standard non-discrimination language requesting artwork has been used for the last 45 years, across all Dem & Republican Admins—for all WH Easter Egg Rolls —incl previous Administration’s.
— Elizabeth Alexander (@EAlexander46) March 30, 2024
Fox News added an undated update at the end of the article, which basically makes their entire article moot because it points out that this rule has been in place for a long time. The original article was published on March 29, and there is no notice on the article that it has been clarified or updated. Was it updated immediately or days after it was published?
The title remains and it is misleading at best:
In between bouts of performative outrage about fictional changes to Easter Egg rules, Republicans spent their Easter weekend also attacking President Biden for honoring Transgender Visibility Day, which is always on March 31, but this year fell on Easter Sunday.
These attacks are coordinated, which suggests that the MAGA outrage is “fake and performative”:
So, why did they spend Easter weekend lying about President Biden? This is a question that will apply more and more as the election heats up, so it’s worth answering clearly.
Conservatives spent Easter weekend lying about President Biden and trying to divide Americans because they cannot run on their policies, and so they depend upon turning us on one another in any way possible.
Usually this desperation to avoid actual policy discussion leads them to fall on the easy out for a base primed to fall for racism by ginning up fear about crime and “border” dog whistles. They round this out with attacks on trans people, women, and any other vulnerable groups they can attack. Yes, this is the opposite of what they claim to stand for. That is to say, this is the opposite behavior one would expect from folks claiming the moral high ground because they wear a cross or sell Bibles or wrap themselves in the flag.
You will know them by what they do, not what they say. As Matthew 7:15-20 warns: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”
If you’re wondering what kind of policies could be so bad that conservatives would spend Easter weekend lying about stupid, easily debunked things like an Easter egg decorating contest, well… Anti-abortionists are actually plotting to restrict IVF:
The anti-abortion movement’s short-term goal is to calm Republicans’ political panic and prevent any legislation they see as harmful to their long-term effort, like the bill Alabama GOP lawmakers approved earlier this month that provides civil and criminal immunity to IVF providers for any death or damage to embryos. Long-term, they would like to not only regulate IVF but also other reproductive technologies not yet in use, like in vitro gametogenesis and artificial wombs.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said he expects the panic to subside and for lawmakers to eventually embrace restrictions on IVF, such as “you’re limited to the creation of three embryos, as opposed to a dozen or whatever.”
In other words, if Republicans can turn your attention from the loss of your medical freedom via their overturn of Roe to the outrage of fictional new regulations about Easter egg decorations, that’s a win for them.
If they can cleverly hide their true intentions to restrict IVF and other reproductive technologies by focusing your attention on their outrage about trans people being acknowledged on a day that also happens to be Easter, well — this is all a win for them.
The goal is to flood the zone with lies, accusations, fake impeachment efforts, smearing of the president’s family name, and culture wars. All of these things are meant to work on emotions. They are effective, too, because most people vote on emotions rather than policy. And that’s why it’s important to pull back from the agitation and even the outrage about the lies, to unplug from the anger and the hurt, and to look at what is actually going on.
When a political party cannot discuss their actual policies because their policies are harmful for the average person and small business, they will instead distract with culture wars and performative outrage.
This isn’t to suggest that conservatives aren’t actually outraged about trans people being acknowledged on Easter, but rather that the elites know that pointing this out will enrage their base, which is already primed to focus on trans people as *the problem*.
Every time you hear a new lie or divisive culture war issue wading into an area meant to take rights away from someone else, ask yourself what this politician might be hiding, from what might they wish to deflect your attention?
If you think that conservatives won’t rush to vote based on a lie about Easter egg decorations, I’m sorry to tell you this is absolutely inaccurate: They will. Or rather, they will vote based on the accumulation of years of culture war lies, all of which confirm pre-existing biases. They won’t look into their own wallet to ask questions about a party whose financial policies serve the elites first and last, with a deceptive short term topping for the workers like Trump’s tax cuts, because they’ve been primed to fall into line to associate with the Republican version of Jesus (that is to say, a nasty hateful person who divides people) and the Republican version of the U.S.A., which is a country that closes its borders to all non-whites, is isolationist and defensive, and ultimately not cedes its superpower to close off and make way for President Putin.
The Easter weekend of lies was coordinated, it was performative, it was a show meant to distract you, the voters, from reality.
And this is why we can’t have nice things anymore. Even Easter eggs have been politicized and attacked by conservatives.
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Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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