With Thanksgiving being over, the beginning of outdoor Christmas display competitions all across America has started as the holiday festivities kick into high gear.
Apparently, that tradition also extends to the halls of Congress, where friendly competitions outside office doors between colleagues typically commence in the spirit of showing goodwill and spreading a little Christmas cheer -- and sometimes even an important message.
But it seems that one Republican member of Congress' unique display has ruffled some Democrat feathers on Capitol Hill.
Rep. Eli Crane is a freshman GOP Congressman from Arizona. Crane, a former Navy SEAL who enlisted to serve a week after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has made the border crisis a focal point of his legislative agenda and frequently speaks out on the issue.
The decorations outside of his office are Biden border crisis themed and show a brick wall, elves, snowflakes on the wall, and border-related signage on the doors.
This did not sit well with Jason Tufele Carl Johnson, the comms director for Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva, who is also from Arizona:
Normally Longworth 2nd floor Christmas decorations are a bipartisan and amiable contest.
— Jason Tufele Carl Johnson (@jasontcjohnson) November 30, 2023
Rep. Eli Crane's office has the most insensitive, charged and insulting Christmas decor I've ever seen in my 5 years on Capitol Hill. pic.twitter.com/6NmYz6ERAc
Normally I wouldn't pay too much attention to what a random congressional staffer had to say. But because it's Friday, and some of the responses were absolutely hilarious, and because we all could use a good laugh, we're going to go there.
Among the best of the bunch was this one, where the snowflakes were used against Johnson:
You let them use your selfie? pic.twitter.com/ibHMei60va
— Meg Brock (@MegEBrock) December 1, 2023
The "marked safe" graphic also made a timely appearance:
— Useless Villager (@Liberty_guy85) December 1, 2023
"Hope you get through this," quipped another.
"We got Democrat congresscritters siding with Hamas and he’s worried about Christmas decorations. Cry harder," Erick Erickson advised.
Perhaps in the spirit of Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who frequently advises Democrats to fill out "hurt feelings reports" and move on, this was shared to the Twitter machine:
https://t.co/2h5ZgmjMnh pic.twitter.com/qmE8Q02jJ9
— Susan Duclos (@SusanDuclos) December 1, 2023
At one point there was even a Democrat staffer pile on of sorts towards Crane (which included at least one Democrat member of Congress), which quieted down quite a bit after Crane's comms director, Zach Kahler, responded accordingly to all the hurt feelings that were expressed:
Looks like your office takes the contest about as seriously as your party does the crisis at the border. https://t.co/QSb79YbONi pic.twitter.com/PoktbJPAOv
— Zach Kahler (@zakahler) November 30, 2023
As far as I'm concerned, I'll take these Democrats' opinions about what's appropriate and not appropriate to display outside of a Congressional office seriously when and only when they decide to speak out against this:
New: Rep. Rashida Tlaib still has a Palestinian flag hanging outside her House Office amid Hamas’ invasion of Israel.
— Reese Gorman (@reesejgorman) October 9, 2023
Story: https://t.co/2fnZXMghsN pic.twitter.com/Tebnf91ae7
Until then...
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