What happened in Portland over the weekend was not a simple holiday snafu — it was a deliberate politicization of a family tradition in a city that has made a habit of putting ideology ahead of community. At the city’s annual tree-lighting ceremony on Nov. 28, 2025, a speaker draped in a Palestinian flag took the microphone and led the crowd in a “Free Palestine” chant, turning what should have been a unifying civic moment into a platform for partisan protest.
Even the language surrounding the event underlines the point: organizers and local promotions avoided the word Christmas, preferring the sterile label “the tree” instead of acknowledging the holiday that millions of Americans celebrate. This isn’t accidental; it’s the result of a cultural project that erases Christian traditions under the guise of inclusivity while making room for political messaging.
The ceremony opened with a tribute tied to Native American Heritage Day, which is itself a respectable inclusion, but it was followed by a speaker who declared, “There are a lot of genocides going on,” and then led the crowd in chants and a “Strong Woman Song” alongside children. Using children and a holiday stage to advance a geopolitical slogan is deplorable theater and a slap in the face to parents who brought their families for wholesome celebration, not a protest rally.
Portland didn’t entirely remove traditional trappings — Santa showed up and carols were sung, and Mayor Keith Wilson eventually flipped the switch on the 75-foot, 10,000-bulb tree — but those conventional moments felt like an afterthought, tacked on after the left’s messaging had already dominated the night. The optics are clear: the pageantry of Christmas was allowed back in only after activists had commandeered the microphone and the narrative.
Angry reactions on social media were swift and predictable, with many people rightly noting the double standard: Christian traditions get softened into vague, non-offensive language while political demonstrations are given center stage. Conservatives should not be surprised — but we should be fired up; this is part of a broader pattern where public spaces are appropriated for activist causes while the bedrock culture that built these communities is sidelined.
This ceremony in Portland is a salutary warning to every American town: if you stay quiet while progressives rewrite your traditions, you will wake up to find your own holidays hollowed out and your children fed political slogans instead of stable values. The remedy is simple and patriotic — insist that civic celebrations remain about community and faith, push back against the politicization of family events, and hold local leaders accountable at the ballot box.
Hardworking Americans don’t need lectures from coastal magnates about what a holiday should look like; we need our cities to respect the faith and customs that unite us. Stand up for your local schools, churches, and civic traditions, and make sure your representatives know that public stages are for celebrating America, not for amplifying ideological stunts.
