Flag burning is a protected expression. Rainbow, Mexican, Ukrainian, and even the American flag, which is what Democrats are about to do a lot more of, to their political detriment, thanks to President Donald Trump. While it is constitutionally protected, it’s not exactly a message that resonates well with most Americans. That’s what makes this play so interesting.
Trump’s Executive Order, Prosecuting the Burning of the American Flag, looks like a trap the Trump-hating left won’t be able to avoid.
Think about it: Flag-burning leftist dirtbags represent just a tiny fraction of the American people. Even many Democrats who detest Trump are uncomfortable with the image of the American flag being set ablaze by the unwashed wingnuts, the lunatic fringe of their party.
And Trump, whose political instincts are unparalleled, has perfected a strategy for marginalizing the Democrats. A couple of months back, I spelled out this two-step strategy: First, get your political enemies to hate your guts. Second, seek out and embrace a series of issues that are wildly popular with the American people — the 60-40 and 70-30 and 80-20 issues — and thereby force your political opponents to paint themselves into an emotively unhinged electoral corner by reflexively taking the opposite side of those issues.
Flag burning is just such an issue. You don’t win supporters in this country by burning the flag.
It’s brilliant, and Trump is playing them from two sides. The left would never stand still if someone burned one of those rainbow flags. Hate speech, they yell, as they try to film it and scroll through their contacts to call the nearest Human Rights Committee to complain. And you might get some sympathy from the otherwise disinterested middle, but most of America isn’t pledging allegiance to the pride flag and is, quite frankly, offended by how it has been abused to justify things like men in women’s sports and locker rooms and pedophilia (sorry, minor attracted persons).
Even the LGB community is mostly sick of that crap. They just wanted to be left alone to live their lives, accepted for the content of their character, if you like, but the TQIA+(etc) folks are making that more difficult. Hollywood and television aren’t helping. Everyone they know may be gay or has a child subject to virtue-signaling trans-torture, but the super-majority of America doesn’t, and ramming it into everything like corn oil, nut juice, or mRNA is getting on their nerves, as will the flag burning.
Prediction: Trump’s EO will increase the number of American flag-burning scenes on liberal media doing business as entertainment.
Most Americans accept that flag burning is a Constitutionally protected expression, but so are a lot of things that could get your ass kicked. If Trump has taken the temperature correctly, a rise in American flag-burning Democrats will only further erode already slipping support for the party of government fraud, foreign gangs, child molesters, drug dealers, human traffickers, and flag burners.
And don’t forget that burning car dealerships and keying (most likely) Democrat-owned Tesla’s was also an approved form of protest for a few months.
The hilarious part about the flag-burning EO is that the proglodytes who cheered on the censorship industrial complex under Biden will have to decide how to proceed. They can’t tell the radical left not to burn flags (censorship). Nor can they openly express their support for free speech (hypocrites), and this form of expression. Both will piss regular Americans off, especially if someone brings up how many of the same people think burning pride flags is hate speech.
It’s an amazing trap, if that’s what it is, which Democrats will insist it is not (Trump is a stupid Nazi), while knowing many of their more unhinged supporters are already ordering a flag on Amazon so they can trip their way into it.
It might be the first American flag many of them have ever owned.
Be sure to wear gloves when you unwarp it. If the flag comes into direct contact with your bare skin, it could blister or burn before you ever get a chance to torch it.
