Republicans wage AI war against Santa Claus

Every year, the radical right gets louder and louder with the message that the left wants to destroy Christmas. This year, however, a little-known senator has decided it’s the Republicans who should be attacking Christmas — specifically Father Christmas (or ‘Santa Claus’, as the Yanks call him):

When you find out the North Pole is trying to bring more bureaucratic overreach & unfunded mandates down the chimney disguised as "Christmas cheer." Not on my watch. We The People run Indiana, not the bureaucrats.

Take it back to the North Pole big guy. Merry Christmas,… pic.twitter.com/iZDsl1DME0

— Chris Garten (@Sen_ChrisGarten) December 25, 2025

Death to Christmas

As we’ve reported, the right’s ‘war on Christmas’ rhetoric gets more ridiculous each year. Silly as it is, however, it does usually make some sort of sense at least. That is not the case here.

In the tweet above, Garten attempted to make the images work by suggesting Santa Claus was visiting his state to perpetrate bureaucracy. The problem is that the text is significantly less memorable than the image of Garten mercilessly assaulting Santa.

A week from now, no one will remember why he generated these images; everyone will remember that he did indeed generate them.

Garten himself justified their creation as follows:

Lots of intolerance, swearing, and outrage on display over a few AI pics I had a blast designing with my kids.

Some of you clowns are just insufferable. Hopefully your negativity stays in the comments and not directed at your families.

Merry Christmas, snowflakes! https://t.co/UKyVLL3MRB pic.twitter.com/lX5nAn2qLm

— Chris Garten (@Sen_ChrisGarten) December 25, 2025

By all means, have fun creating goofy images with your children. By all means, post them to the internet too. If you’re too Christmas pudding’d to understand why people think it’s freak behaviour, that’s your problem!

People responded to Garten as follows:

We got years of Fox News “War on Christmas” segments because some Starbucks barista told an anchor Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas, meanwhile GOP politicians are posting AI pictures giving Santa the Hulk Hogan big boot and a Superman Punch.

Incredible. https://t.co/kLWEpVnKa9

— Brendan Darr (@BrendanDarr) December 26, 2025

Another datapoint for how the leadership of the American Right is now too very online in politically self-destructive ways that European observers struggle to grasp.

MAGA elites are too weak to build something lasting but strong enough to cause lasting chaos. https://t.co/8VJFH4samt

— Alexander Clarkson  (@APHClarkson) December 26, 2025

I don’t even know what conservatism is anymore. https://t.co/PGmqQQlBUG

— chase 🇺🇸 (@wildstar33) December 26, 2025

Warriors in the war on Christmas

In the fantasy world they’ve created for themselves, the right are on the pro-Christmas side. Garten’s post is a great example of how social media and AI are destroying these people’s ability to live in any version of reality.

The Christmas post isn’t his first foray into fantasy, either; in November, he posted an image of himself riding a turkey: