The false underdog gambit

The "false underdog" tactic is my term for one of the most common devices used by demagogues. Whenever a propagandist tries to make a privileged class seem like a persecuted minority, you are seeing the "false underdog" gambit at work.

Josef Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, believed in this tactic. That's why -- despite the misleading impression conveyed by many resource books on Nazi cinema -- he despised Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will. In Goebbels' view, emphasizing "triumph" was counter-productive. A film audience's sympathies go not to the strutting conquerors but to the outnumbered crusaders facing an uphill battle. (The erzats Nazi propaganda film in Kiss of the Spider Woman is closer to what Goebbels had in mind.)

The religious right has long benefited from portraying itself in a "false underdog" light. For example: Throughout the 1970s and '80s, this community circulated absurd rumors of a coming persecution of Christians in America. That day never came. In fact, Dominionist "Christians" have made plans to persecute everyone else.

Fundamentalists argue that gay rights equal "special privileges." They incessantly repeat the canard that Christian children are forbidden from praying in school, simply because teachers stopped foisting classroom prayer on believers and non-believers alike.

The "false underdog" mentality informs Jerry Falwell's latest crusade. He hopes to convince his flock that Christmas -- Christmas! -- is endangered.

Falwell has put the power of his 24,000-member congregation behind the "Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," an effort led by the conservative legal organization Liberty Counsel. The group promises to file suit against anyone who spreads what it sees as misinformation about how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces.

The 8,000 members of the Christian Educators Association International will be the campaign's "eyes and ears" in the nation's public schools. They'll be reporting to 750 Liberty Counsel lawyers who are ready to pounce if, for example, a teacher is muzzled from leading the third-graders in "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing."

An additional 800 attorneys from another conservative legal group, the Alliance Defense Fund, are standing by as part of a similar effort, the Christmas Project. Its slogan: "Merry Christmas. It's OK to say it."

Maybe some schools have bent over backwards to show sensitivity toward Jewish and non-Christian students. Maybe a few people -- very few -- have gone too far in their mania for pluralistic inoffensiveness. But so what? The phrase "Merry Christmas" never has been and never will be in danger; those words will be heard long after you and I are buried and gone.

Why does Jerry Falwell pretend otherwise? Because he has an agenda.