The Left increasingly hates the American flag. Why?
The American flag stands for freedom and prosperity and victory. No matter how many problems you have with America, you ought to be grateful God gave you the opportunity, as he did for me, to live in the greatest country in the history of humanity.
So why do so many people hate the flag?
President Trump’s magic power is that whatever he touches, his opposition disowns. So if he takes an 80% position, his opposition will take the 20% position just because they hate him so much. If he decides that he likes rock music and MMA and fighter jets, the Left will say all of those things are awful.
If he decides that it would be awesome to have a really cool fair on the Washington Mall, the Left will decide that the fair is really, really bad — just because they hate him that much. If he decides that we need a better lining for the Reflecting Pool, the Left will go nuts and say it’s better if the place is essentially a swamp.
So if President Trump hugs an American flag, the Left will — by necessity — want to burn it.
The Left should stop doing this because it’s bad and stupid. If we are going to share anything in this country, we should share a love of the American flag.
If you look back historically, the people who had the most reason not to like the American flag still found a way to love it. That’s because if you root for America’s principles, eventually the American flag comes to stand for applying those principles.
To take the most famous example, Frederick Douglass, who escaped slavery in the 1850s, gave a speech on July 5 asking what Independence Day meant to the slave. His speech was a critique of the idea that the Declaration of Independence did not properly apply to black people. His complaint was not that the Declaration of Independence or the American flag was wrong or bad, but that black people were not included in that promise.
And then, of course, the Civil War was fought. Over the course of 100 years, Jim Crow was extirpated to fulfill Frederick Douglass’s vision of a July 4 that stood for all Americans. That’s the best way to approach the American flag, because the same American flag that flew over an America that tolerated slavery also flew with the troops wearing blue as they fought the Confederates to abolish slavery.
But today, the Left has decided that the American flag is just too uncomfortable. There’s a long piece in NBC News today titled “Many Americans Say Stars And Stripes Is Now A Red Flag.” The piece states, “To fly or not to fly an American flag? That was never a question for Bruce Watson, who has put his national pride on display for years — and nudges neighbors in his small New England town to do the same. … But as the polarized nation marks its 250th birthday, Watson, 72, worries his stars and stripes may now need an asterisk. ‘If we do fly the flag, we will also put out signs to make it clear that we are not MAGA,’ he said.”
It’s unbelievable that the Left has allowed the Right to treat the flag as a right-wing symbol. The American flag is not a right-wing symbol. It is a symbol of all the values of America. And if the Left wishes to surrender that to the Right, I’m not sure why they would do it.
Apparently, a bunch of people on the Left are going to fly the flag, but upside down to protest President Trump.
One person interviewed by NBC News said her father will be flying the American flag, but if it were up to her and her mom, they’d be flying the Pride flag or the Philadelphia Eagles flag instead.
That’s insane. You feel more loyalty and love for the Philadelphia Eagles than you do for the country?
According to NBC News, some people said they were motivated more by peer pressure than by patriotism to fly their flags. A teacher said she is flying alternate flags, the rainbow pride flag, and the banner of her beloved New England Patriots. The teacher said she had not flown the flag since 2024, when Trump was elected for a second term, saying, “I have a gay son and a grandson and felt that the flag was now a symbol flown by people who don’t want my children to exist.”
Herein lies the problem. The American flag is a symbol. Symbols have underlying meanings. They stand for things. The American flag stands for something different than the swastika or the Pride Progress flag.
What does the American flag stand for historically? Most obviously, the promise of the Declaration of Independence and the greatness of the American Constitution, the greatest system of government ever devised by man.
And yes, a set of values rooted in the Bible, because it turns out that the Declaration and the Constitution were not born out of arid soil. They didn’t spring full-blown from the heads of the men who wrote them. They are the apex of a system of values that was rooted thousands of years beforehand.
So if you don’t like those things, you’re probably doing Americanism wrong. You’re failing to understand what makes America great and awesome, regardless of your politics.
.png)
.png)
