Politico has an article about Dems and left-leaning independent voters reclaiming the American flag after the election:
[F]or many people on both sides of the political chasm, the flag had been re-cast as a kind of shorthand, an extension of the MAGA hat—sending an instant message of which side you were on, or inspiring stereotypes that pulled the country even further apart.
“When I saw somebody with a flag bumper sticker or a t-shirt with a big flag on it, I immediately thought. … It’s a Trump nut job. A crazy person,” said California screenwriter Ed Kamen…
“My attitude’s changed about it now,” Kamen, an independent, told me weeks after the election. “I am proud of my country, I love my flag, I love my country. And it’s nice to see the flag again representing the country as a whole, instead of one section of it.”
The article acknowledges that Republicans co-opted national symbols long before Trump — a literal flag humper — came along to represent the logical extension of Republicans’ worst instincts. But from what I’ve seen, the timing of the change described in the article is off; liberals taking back the flag is not just a post-election thing.
I think Dems and left-leaning indies began taking the American flag back four years ago. Anecdotally, I’ve seen a lot more American flags at anti-Trump and/or anti-wingnut issue demonstrations (Women’s March, airport protests against the so-called Muslim ban, March for Our Lives, etc.) than I recall seeing at anti-war marches, etc., during previous administrations.
Possibly it’s an instinctive response to the idolatry surrounding Trump and the un-American character of his time in office. W was an awful president, and his fans and flunkies questioned opponents’ patriotism. But Trump’s brazen attempt to rebrand America as his property and conflate the national interest with his personal interests strike me as different from W’s more pedestrian Republican awfulness.
Maybe that’s the difference that made some of us reach for our national symbols. We tend to value things more when they’re endangered.
Trump’s hideous visage and/or logo desecrate some of the American flags flown by cultists around here. I’ve never been one to attach a lot of meaning to symbols like flags, but seeing the Trump-despoiled flags makes me angry, as does the thin blue line flag, which I consider another form of desecration.
I’ve seen the whiny cultists in my town who spend their weekends haunting the courthouse traffic light corner and screaming about election fraud and communism fly thin blue line flags and an upside down American flag. But mostly they wave Trump flags.
I considered making a “Who’s Sleepy Now, Bitch?” bumper sticker to escalate my taunting campaign against them. But maybe I’ll just put an American flag sticker on my car — for the first time in my life.
It’s not so much that we’ve taken back the flag; it’s that the Trumpists tossed it aside in favor of grotesque knock-offs that express their allegiance to their idol instead of the country. So the flag is ours now.
Open thread!
raven
It’s 14 years old but still.
The Intellectuals and the Flag, Todd Gitlin.
NotMax
Politico? At long last, has it come to that?
//
debbie
I must say I was surprised to see so many reversed flags in my neighborhood after the election. Dems have grown balls in the age of Trump.
LuciaMia
Saw Trump gave his first post-election interview on Fox this morning. At first glance it looks exactly what you’d expect.
How seasonal. “Trump the king, in his raging…”
debbie
@LuciaMia:
I’ve been reading about that interview. Announcing his 2024 campaign while Biden’s inaugurated? Who the fuck cares, you washed up, old, crooked has-been.
NotMax
@raven
Shorter version: Have the replace part vetted and ready to go prior to the repeal part.
:)
Jerry
I went out and bought an American flag on the Saturday that the major news media outlets called the race for Biden/Harris.
E.
I bought a flag just to hang on my door once Biden hit 270. I find myself using the word “patriot” more now too. Honestly it feels better to love your country more than you fear it, and displaying the flag helps that.
hueyplong
Unaltered American flags unaccompanied by obnoxious slogans or Confederate paraphernalia have signaled Dem to me for a while now.
VOR
Guy down the street was flying both a Trump flag and a thin blue line flag. So I put out the US flag after Biden won. That’s the Biden flag.
NotMax
@VOR
Much as I appreciate your sentiment, let’s not go that route; it’s the American flag.
Suzanne
I might buy a flag to fly outside my house on holidays. I don’t like ceding semiotic ground to anyone. AMERICA doesn’t belong to the MAGAts.
My grandfather, who very much became a Republican in the second half of his life, was a soldier and took the Flag Code very, VERY seriously. He would have been been absolutely scandalized by how the American flag is used as personal branding on boots, boxer shirts, swim trunks, etc. It’s gross.
Baud
Good.
Kent
I also like how Dems have reclaimed the American Flag symbolism. Like this example of an American flag hijab: https://guff.com/these-posters-protesting-trump-were-created-by-the-man-responsible-for-obamas-hope-artwor
The Obama people were exceptionally good at that with their rising sun flag logo. https://fontsinuse.com/uses/1846/obama-08-campaign-branding
We need more of that.
cain
I’ve hated that I look upon the flag as some kind of MAGAt thing – especially when you see it flying from a pick up truck alongside the Trump flag or the blue line flag.
Flying that blue line flag seems like alternative to the confederacy flag. I see it as an act of sedition. But at least I can identify them now. I still don’t fly the Old Glory, but happy to wear a lapel pin or some other.
What I do wish people would do is stop wearing it as a fashion statement. So disrespectful to have it as a bathing suit (men and women) or some other thing – plus of course right wingers will display that shit with a submachine gun. Just ridiculous.
Nicole
@Suzanne:
When I was a kid I remember being told it was disrespectful to the symbol of the nation to put the Stars and Stripes on anything other than an actual flag (I was also told if a flag touched the ground it should be burnt). And now, here we are, with conservatives happily fucking with the design of the flag with that fucking blue line. Demonstrating that it was never about loyalty to country for them.
I’m not particularly patriotic and I don’t care if people wear flags (I never cared) but that fucking thin blue line flag makes me furious. Probably because what it’s demonstrating is a deep-held belief in authoritarianism. God, these people.
Suzanne
@raven: Thanks for the recommendation. Richard Rorty also argued for a strong patriotic posture from the left. Michael Walzer said something similar in “A Foreign Policy for the Left”.
cain
@Suzanne:
When I was growing up in Indiana, I learned to raise and lower the flag and fold the flag properly from 4th – 6th grade. I bet most of these MAGAts wouldn’t know the first thing about it.
Suzanne
@cain: I learned that, too. Then I see douchebags wearing the flag the same way other people wear the Nike logo and I silently judge the fuck out of them.
John Revolta
This issue bothers me a lot, how the Right has adopted and co-opted the flag to of MY country to be their own personal property and a exclusive statement of their views. But it’s not a new thing. Even back in the day, it was the “hard-hats” who used to wave the flag at us while they were giving us the finger for marching against the war. Abbie Hoffman famously had a Flag shirt made and he used to get death threats for wearing it. Now it’s on everything.
Perhaps we can take it back as our own and leave the Right to their Traitor Stars and Bars. That would make me happy.
New Deal democrat
Porque no los dos?
Kent
Times change. Back in WW2 military uniforms didn’t have US flag patches. Now they do. The US flag did not actually become a mandatory component of US military uniforms until 2005.
Tdjr
I made it a point to put a small American flag on my Biden 2020 sign. I hate the idea that if you’re a Dem, you’re not allowed to be a patriot.
Old Dan and Little Ann
We took down our flag after drumph was elected. It went back up that beautiful Saturday a few weeks ago. As for the idiots hanging their trump flags still. They’re never coming down. Sigh.
Suzanne
@Kent: It’s still not supposed to be worn as apparel, not for any advertising purpose. Wearing it as one wears a corporate logo is an advertising purpose, in my view.
NotMax
@New Deal democrat
Maybe something pithier?
BETTER SLEEPY
THAN CREEPY
.
//
Kent
@John Revolta: It goes back way longer than Abbie Hoffman. He just used the flag image subversively which is what got people’s goat. But if you look at imagery of WW2 you see all kinds of shit like this: https://www.amazon.com/AGS-Vintage-Military-Propaganda-Poster/dp/B07K7YDPWS
In fact, the iconic Uncle Sam wearing a flag pants and hat goes back to the 19th Century https://www.magnoliabox.com/products/19th-century-illustration-of-uncle-sam-signing-a-declaration-of-independence-42-16258891
cain
@Tdjr:
Yes, they have co-opted what is a patriot – and they believe they are real america – which for some reason I can’t figure out why – most of these small towns are depressed, filled with drugs and mental health issues – which are understandable but even with govt help they refuse to change their trajectory and make a difference (see coal towns)
Then you of course get all the attention from rags like the New York Times that pay attention to you and who in turn tell the rest of us – “look, real americans, suffering, they matter!” Like the rest of us don’t have our problems as well.
WaterGirl
My first thought when I saw the title was can we at least have the flag cleaned and sanitized first, after all of the assaults by Trump.
Sister Golden Bear
It’s our flag too.
Post-election I flew mine alongside the LGBTQ rainbow flag.
Delk
There was one of those thin blue line flags along with an American flag on a house a block over from me. A couple weeks before the election the flag was replaced with a Chicago flag. I live in a very liberal neighborhood. Never saw a trump sign during any of my daily walks.
Kent
According to who? The US Flag Code? All that flag fetish stuff was drawn up in 1923 during the height of the first “red scare” by the National Americanism Commission of the American Legion and jammed into law during the start of WW2. It’s all patently unconstitutional which is why it isn’t ever enforced. And it most certainly doesn’t go back to the founding fathers or anything like that.
Mike in NC
I’ve driven past a few houses in our area that still have Trump flags proudly flying. Those were the same houses that, in the pre-Trump era, flew the Confederate battle flag.
JaySinWA
I believe he will use the announcement as a cudgel to declare any investigation or charges as politically motivated like the “Russia Hoax”. He may even get some traction with DOJ guidelines about interfering in elections being what they are.
UncleEbeneezer
The thin blue line cooption of the flag is so disgusting but also so perfect, for who these people are. They really do see unfettered, racist policing (with zero accountability, oversight etc.) as fundamental to their view of America. And let’s not forget, that that blue lives flag bullshit only popped up as a reaction to Black Lives Matter.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kent:
Fixed your bad link: American flag hijab.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
And now they’ll go back to hoisting Old Unfaithful.
brantl
Whoever said Shrub wasn’t just as bad as Stump, doesn’t remember all that Shrub degraded and ruined in this country. Shrub was the worst president since Andrew Johnson, until Stump. Now he’s just the runner-up, and that only by a nose. Who else ruined the economy, lied the american people into a war, and killed more than 1 MILLION PEOPLE, as a deliberately misleading mistake, created “free speech zones” in barricades, for penning up people who disagreed? GWB, that’s who!
Kattails
My Biden sign is still up since the three local Trumpies still have theirs up, fuck them royally. I keep thinking to get several small American flags and put them all around the Biden sign.
On another front I’d just like to say that more and more I see images of people like Kelly M. and Noem, up close shots where they’re looking straight at the camera, and I want very much to punch the shit out of them. And I am not a particularly violent person, or so I believed. Noem– they’ve lost one in every thousand people in her state and they’re “about where they expected to be”???????????? WTFF? And aren’t I pretty and I have my gun and my Bible…..
gwangung
I DESPISE performative patriotism.
If all it took to be patriotic was to wave a flag, then any idiot could do it.
Kent
Shrub was an example of the horrific badness of the institutional Republican Party.
Trump is an example of the horrific badness of the MAGA insurgency that has taken over the institutional Republican party.
Honestly there hasn’t been anything good about the Republican party since maybe Eisenhower.
zhena gogolia
So funny to see all these jackals planning to put up flags. I was just saying to my husband I want to do that, after living in this house for 30 years with no flags.
Kent
The yellow ribbons during the Iraq War really made my skin crawl. They were everywhere in TX back then. Vote for politicians who send soldiers to die, and vote for politicians who cut the VA and VA benefits when they return. But “support our troops” Yep.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Delk:
Is there any significance to the Chicago flag other than it being Chicago?
Leto
Most of the MAGATs fly Confederate, Nazi, and thin blue line flags. They fly the flags of traitors and losers, and it’s how I most easily distinguish patriots from seditionists. Most of the Trumpists around here have taken down their hate symbols, while a few still proudly fly them, but I sure as fuck remember every home who had that shit hung up. Long memory here.
raven
@Kent: I wore mine just to piss people off. It worked.
laura
@LuciaMia: I was late to the last thread and your comment. I dropped everything and made Waldorf salad. Thanks a bunch!
I can’t hear Maria Batmobile and not think of her really bad dress and opera length gloves from a few Washington Dinners a few years ago – maybe the Al Smith dinner. Sure enough- a quick google search confirms what was described as “practically a White Snake video.”
trollhattan
Anytime is a good time for John Prine. “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heavan Anymore.”
(Live version with intro where he gives the Readers Digest backstory.)
raven
@Steeplejack (phone):
Feathers
Those thin blue line flags started showing up when people started getting fired for flying Confederate flags, just saying.
Not watching The Crown, although I may watch this season at some point, I am remembering back in the day that my parents thought it was a sign of bad times coming that the Reagan’s chief of protocol curtseyed to Prince Charles during a visit that he made to the US. “American blood was shed so that no American girl would ever have to curtsey” was how it was put to me at the time. At least Nancy had the sense not to curtsey to the Queen at the wedding. The British press freaked out, of course. Fuck ’em. Disney has a lot to answer for with its princess propaganda, as well as that hot garbage fire The Lion King. An evil lion takes over and the lionesses all just bow to him until they are saved by a little cub who’s done nothing but grow up and have royal blood. Convinced that movie paved the way for Shrub. And George Lucas turning a Vietnam War allegory into the most bloodlines are everything claptrap imaginable. Fuck JJ Abrams, too. Sigh. I’m fun at parties.
MagdaInBlack
@raven: That’s quite a picture. I like it =-)
raven
@MagdaInBlack: We didn’t take a lot of color back then and it’s pretty blurry but that represents that house well!
Leto
@raven: are you with John Lennon? Guy on the left.
Sebastian
I have added the ?? emoji to my Twitter nym, which as wonderful when I divebombed on MAGAts (I’ve calmed down a bit since). So yes, it’s a thing. They can have their traitor rags for all I care.
PSA and call to action for all jackals:
It was mentioned on BJ before but didn’t get a front page article, please check out https://djtrumplibrary.com which is an absolutely amazing work of art and we would be so fortunate if this would really become the DJT Presidential Library. A museum to his crimes built at the Mexican border.
Please please please follow them on Twitter to boost the signal.
raven
@Leto: Ha, he’s a serious gumba!
Kent
@Feathers: The Lion King gave us Shrub? Ha. You must be fun at parties. It came out in 1994, the first term of the Clinton Administration.
What gave us Shrub was the near unanimity of the Republican business elite who were more unified around Shrub in 2000 than even the Dems were around Biden in 2020. After they surgically took out McCain in South Carolina it was all Shrub. I don’t think Disney had much to do with it.
Yarrow
Taking back the flag is good but imo it’s more important to reclaim patriotism. Those fascist, racist assholes are not patriots and should never have been allowed to get away with claiming they are. It’s more important to take back the idea of patriotism and what it mean to be a patriotic American. The flag and other symbols will follow if we do that.
I have been impressed what with Biden has been doing, framing wearing a mask as being patriotic. Caring for your fellow citizens is patriotic. Etc. Standing up for democracy and the laws of this country is also part of being a patriot and Dems should be framing this current refusal of the Republicans to support the transition that way. Call them the not-patriots they are.
Leto
@raven: just going to say, a bit envious of your guys ability to grow those luscious Samson locks.
burnspbesq
@JaySinWA:
I don’t think it will get him any traction with Leticia James or Cy Vance. Or, for that matter, with Chuck Rettig if he is retained by Biden.
Steeplejack (phone)
@raven:
I get that. I was wondering if there was some special significance to it popping up to replace a blue lines flag.
raven
@Leto: All ya had to do was not cut it! Mine got way longer than that before I got banged up and landed in the hospital for 2 months. They just taped it up with athletic tape and it was pretty funky so I cut it off.
raven
@Steeplejack (phone): Ah, dunno.
Nicole
@Feathers: The Lion King is Disney’s version of Hamlet.
I would say Forrest Gump is a much more likely candidate to explain Bush, what with it’s theme of “If you’re not a white man, you’re gonna die. That said, if you’re a smart white man, you’ll end up with your legs blown off, but if you’re a dumb white man you’ll end up a millionaire.” No wonder Shrub said it was his favorite movie.
Totally agree about JJ Abrams, however. #teamTheLastJedi
Gary K
Here in rural Ohio, we often see that flag that’s half US and half Confederate.
Yutsano
@Leto: Come sit six feet away from me. I can’t even get close to the flowing locks most guys can get. Mine just ends up doubling back on itself. A mullet was never a possibility for me.
Villago Delenda Est
The flag of the MAGAts is the Dixie swastika. Not the stars and stripes.
Gvg
@UncleEbeneezer: I saw it after 911. I think it may be older, but right after all the police and firemen died trying to save the people in the tower, people felt…they had ignored the civilian services and should pay more attention. At the time I tended to agree. To me it was also about not over respecting soldiers as the only patriots.
since then, the symbol has acquired more meanings I don’t agree with.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
THIS!
I once worked in a 4th floor office and was lucky to have one of the two windows on the 4th floor, looking out at a big distributor warehouse next door, which had a big flagpole with a really big American Flag.
Over the months, that flag was coming apart, the flapping edge was eventually shredded. SO one day on my lunch break I stopped by the office over there, and shared my opinion of displaying such a lousy version of a flag I was proud of. I was more polite that that sounds, being a professional from right next door.
To be clear, I was and am a bearded, long-haired, hippy-looking person, but right off I started with “I’m a veteran!” and finished off with “That flag is embarrassing.” The next day, there was a brand new, respectful flag out my window. Win for the hippy!
We don’t fly a flag, nor put out political signs, because we live in wooded isolation. Maybe a bumper sticker with “Veteran, Patriot, Democrat” would be in order.
Villago Delenda Est
@Feathers: JJ Abrams is a franchise killer. Fuck him.
Delk
@Steeplejack (phone): never have seen the owner but the flag was up when we moved to the neighborhood four years ago. It was pretty ratty looking the last time I saw it. It may have finally fell apart. There are a lot of Chicago flags in the neighborhood.
raven
@Yutsano: Aw. if you had let it go it would have flattened out!
Hoodie
@Leto: I saw perhaps the worst the other day, a giant flag with images of a scowling Trump and a scowling bald eagle superimposed over a waving stars and stripes, which is particularly hilarious if you’ve seen that video of Trump getting attacked by an eagle. I’m baffled as to what Trump these people are idolizing, because he seems so obviously far removed from what they show in their imagery, i.e., he’s a jowly old guy with a gut, a combover, a whiny voice and tiny hands. I guess it’s not much different than Reagan and W worship, but at least those guys kind of looked and acted the part. On second thought, maybe after the failures of W and 8 years of Obama, the urge to own the libs is so strong now it’s reached the point of “we hate you so much, we’ll put this fucking clown in charge.” Kind of like smearing feces all over yourself.
Sebastian
@Yarrow: this.
trollhattan
@Feathers:
Thatcher features prominently in “The Crown” and at at some point utters, “Restore the Great to Britain” (paraphrasing, don’t recall the actual construction) and it’s absolutely hair-raising, and not in a good way.
Everything Trump does is borrowed and I can believe the story that he kept a book of Adolph’s speeches on his nightstand.
Kept expecting Reagan to make an entrance and am relieved to say he does not.
Baud
@Yarrow:
Thirded.
Suzanne
@Kent:
Sure. It’s not law, it’s just good taste. I consider people who wear the flag in the manner of a logo to be in terrible taste. There is no consequence for them other than being lower in my estimation, which is probably okay with that person.
It’s gross.
raven
@Suzanne: it is
Roger Moore
@gwangung:
Flag waving is to patriotism as public prayer is to religious belief. It’s no surprise the same people who are fooled by flag waving traitors are also fooled by praying hypocrites.
Uncle Cosmo
@Villago Delenda Est: The swastika, the Dixstika, and the copstika. The traitors’ trifucta.
Barbara
@JaySinWA: I don’t think he is capable of having that much strategic insight. I think he honestly is going through a kind of withdrawal at even the thought of not having the power and adulation he has so evidently gotten used to.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m with you on idiots desecrating the flag with anything, especially the visage of Emperor Tang. Hell, the loyalty to Hair Furor over our country is fucking creepy to see. A neighbor behind us has a flag pole out in his back yard that the flag has flown from for many years. He added the “No More Bullshit” Furor flag below the American flag last year. This summer he pulled the American flag down and put the bullshit flag up as the sole flag on his pole so he could virtue-signal to everyone where his loyalty lies.
Another asshole draped one of the bullshit flags over his porch railing for display, right across from the library so the kids would see what a responsible, polite adult he isn’t.
Feathers
@Kent: And how did those behind the scenes movers get everyone to fall in line behind Shrub?
It wasn’t just Disney, but starting in the 80s, Hollywood screenwriting became driven by high concept. The idea was to heighten story tension by “raising the stakes.” Being inexperienced and having failed every time before raised the stakes. Being a welder without formal dance training certainly raised the stakes on becoming a professional ballerina! In A Few Good Men, Tom Cruise didn’t want to win the case because This is America And Murder is Fucking Wrong, but because he needed to step out of the shadow of his famous father’s legacy. Tom wasn’t experienced, he was a year out of law school, he got assigned the case because he was known as the king of the plea deal, too chicken to go to trail. But he had the famous dad and once Demi Moore gives him a pep talk, the determination to live up to expectations. The Lion King’s coming out in 1994 meant six years for the fantasy of the murdered king’s failson saving everyone from the evil usurper to sink into unconscious memory. The Republicans (and much of the media) actually accepted the fact that he was George HW Bush’s son made him qualified to be President, despite a thin resume, with a lot of marks against him.
Things don’t have single causes, but there is a zeitgeist, and movies, songs and popular culture can determine what is acceptable and what isn’t.
Omnes Omnibus
Flag waving, bumper sticker patriotism has never had any appeal for me. Neither the right nor the left versions.
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
One more thing about flying flags!
One of the things I did on my ship in the Navy in the long-ago was raise and lower the flag. Not every day, but when I had the duty when that was supposed to do.
In port it flew on the fantail. IIRC a Quartermaster would raise and lower the flag while at sea, I never did that at sea.
I also knew that when flags were to be flown at half-mast (which is only possible on board ships, otherwise it’s half-staff!) you are to run the flag up smartly to the top of the little flag mast, and then lower it slowly and somberly to the half-mast position.
I took that brief daily task quite seriously. Especially Half-Mast, as that was always to honor someone’s passing.
Another Scott
@Kent: “mandatory” Eh??
https://www.dcmilitary.com/tester/news/local/navy-announces-rollout-and-wear-dates-for-uniform-changes/article_ede9942a-fb27-5895-b08d-6a524a5d961d.html
I don’t see a flag on those Navy outfits.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Yutsano:
I can remember that far back. Not much conditioner used back then.
Kattails
@Kattails: Kayleigh not Kelly duh still want to clock her
@J R in WV: Given the inanity/insanity of the Trump supporters, and the intransigence of Dump, I for one am very happy to know that there are so many of you (“Veteran, Patriot, Democrat”) out there. It’s actually soothing to read feeds like VoteVets and Stonekettle. They don’t mince words.
Also, thanks for your kind words about my artwork the other day, I didn’t catch it until later.
Suzanne
@Feathers:
This is a fascinating line of discussion/inquiry. I have been really interested in the visual culture elements of Trumpism for a while. I think it explains a lot more of the phenomenon than the lens of policy or economics.
Feathers
@Nicole: I think I had erased Forrest Gump from my mind. Thanks for reminding me. It’s kind of hard hating movies so many people love. I usually shut up about it. If you don’t know what’s wrong with The Help… I usually just leave it at historical fiction that inserts heroes where none existed is not helpful because it creates the fantasy that if you had been there, you would have done something. If nobody did anything then, you wouldn’t have either. And you are ignoring whatever momentous social change is just about to happen. You are.
Bill Arnold
@Feathers:
The thin blue line flags are usually, in practice Grey and White, with a blue stripe. Gray was the color of the uniforms of traitors.
The thin blue line flag is saying that the police are allies of the neo-Confederates. That’s just basic symbolism! :-)
The thin blue flag pisses me off too, a lot. Somebody up the street was flying a large one from their large pickup truck before the election. Mildly worrisome, since there’s often shooting practice up there on the weekend.
Frank Wilhoit
Each of us is human.
Each of us is an individual.
Assertions of group identity in between those two fixed points are not permissible.
Omnes Omnibus
@Feathers: It is true that the song “In the Navy” and the obviously homoerotic scenes in “Top Gun” did lead directly to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” which was a step forward for gay rights.
germy
germy
Are they coming back?
raven
@J R in WV: It’s hard to see but there is a small canon right in front of the little sign beneath the arch. We had revile, retreat and taps on out little fort and the flags went up and down at revile and retreat along with a recording of the national anthem. If you were outside you had to turn and salute in the direction of the flag but they used a 45rpm so you could hear it when they turned on the amp and keyed the needle. Guys would dive for the doors trying to beat the rap and the lifers would light you up if you got caught.
At Ft Lewis they put my unit in “casual” barracks right next to the Post Commanders building and we packed the canon with TP and it made a great mess when the set it off! What were they going to do, send us to Vietnam?
Bobby Thomson
Betty, I think you’ve forgotten why Junior Bush was awful. A lot of it was the same us vs. them Dems-are-traitors stuff that Trump has been doing, only most of it through surrogates. Swiftboating was a thing. Donahue getting cancelled with high ratings was a thing. The Dixie Chicks getting boycotted was a thing. His dad did a lot of the same shit against Dukakis. Republicans have been trying to monopolize the flag since Vietnam, and Democrats have gone back and forth on taking it back versus recoiling.
raven
@Feathers: Look up Sammy Davis, Medal of Honor to read about the real Forrest Gump.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I remember reading a story years ago by a North Korean defector who wrote about seeing a contraband copy of “Titanic”, and finding it incredibly powerful that societies existed in which romance was more salient to people than “love” for a governmental leader. Themes are powerful.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Yeah, but that stuff was all about how liberals should support Bush’s wars, right? I really don’t want to go that way if it’s the cost of “patriotism”.
Leto
@Another Scott: it’s mainly an Army uniform item. They wear it on their right shoulder. The rest of the services don’t.
Feathers
@Suzanne: One of the things is that you have to go back. It’s not things during the Trump era, but in the eras preceding it. Like all the movies with all the unqualified heroes. In classic Hollywood cinema, you had very talented protagonists who are shown to be up against terrible odds, because that’s how the world works. With the high concept era, with Touchstone/Disney as the main driver, you end up with heroes/heroines who had no idea what they were doing (because that made them more relatable), but who ended up winning against the odds because of grit and the memory of dear old mom or dad. Awful. Grow up on enough of that and the need for practical experience becomes just more bullshit holding you back.
You see it now in the media. If you look up the history of all those “Oh, I’m a just a Mom who followed my passion,” you invariably discover that they were a high powered Manhattan magazine editor or stylist for over a decade before launching their Instagram businesses. And their husband sold their startup to Google. Not all of them, but sewing Victorian clothing isn’t just a hobby if you have a BA in costume design and an MA in historical fashion, even if you are now a YouTuber. People pretend to be amateurs. It drives me crazy how being a knitwear designer used to be about designing sweaters and such. Now it is about being a lifestyle brand.
NotMax
@debbie
Oh, it was there. Just that it was then called creme rinse.
JPL
My DIL is going to cut about four inches of my hair, unless she changes her mind.
@NotMax: HAH
Leto
@raven:
Know that the current generation of youngin’s is proudly carrying on these traditions. And us lifers are still lighting them up ;)
Feathers
@raven: This is what I’m talking about. We aren’t making Sergeant Davis. Sergeant York was a brilliant film! Instead we make fictionalized claptrap like Forrest Gump where the war hero has this Zelig like trick of showing up at great moments in history and being a wisdom spouting simpleton. Maybe we could still make Sergeant Davis.
CaseyL
I’ve never been a flag waver of any sort, but am pleased to see Democrats taking back patriotic symbolism from the people and Party determined to destroy America.
OT: Word is that Biden will appoint Neera Tanden as OMB Director. Rose Twitter is… upset.
I remember hearing her name frequently during the primaries, but for the life of me I can’t remember anything else. I thought she was a BernieBro, for pity’s sake – when apparently she’s their Bete Noir.
cain
@gwangung:
Even in the BIble it explicitly said that performative sanctity is also bullshit.
raven
@Feathers: He’s a really good guy, I had the honor of hanging with him back in the day.
cain
That’s the sad thing – that’s all they think is required of them. Just soem rah rah rah, but they will do zero sacrifice. Remember when that reporter asked Bush what the American people should do to support the Troops – he told them all to buy stuff? Fuck him.
trollhattan
@germy:
Collecting their “parting gifts” I’ll wager.
raven
@Leto: Youngin’s, hell I was 18!!!
Feathers
@raven: Lucky you. A great director can make a fantastic film about a wonderful guy, if the suits will let them.
raven
@Feathers: Here’s a nice article about him.
cain
@Feathers:
Honestly, that scene with Scar uniting with the wolves? That’s pretty much Trump joining up with Russians and the other hyenas. It’ll take more than a “cub” to get our pride back though.
Suzanne
@Feathers: Another trope that I cannot stand is that of the incorrigible child, almost always a boy, making trouble and it being treated as if it’s adorable. And worse, as if it’s a direct foreshadowing of greatness. There are so many kids’ movies from my era with some version of that character and I think it’s contributed to a perverse male entitlement.
NotMax
@cain
Don’t forget them tooling around in ribbon festooned Hummers, also too.
JPL
I wanted Pete Buttigieg, but I have to say this is an excellent choice Jen Psaki.
Biden chooses an all-female senior White House press team
Kattails
@Bobby Thomson: Point well taken. Swiftboating of Kerry, while Dubya kept the aircraft carrier steaming around in circles off California so he could put on the show of landing on it. No doubt many believed he’d actually landed that plane himself, whata hero!
Villago Delenda Est
@cain: Matthew 6:5. A bible verse that fundigelicals have never read, or at the very least least ignore.
raven
@NotMax: As soon as we went out the gate I’d hang my peace sign on my mirror!
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: The scowl is the same petulant expression Hitler always had. I think to these guys that resentful petulance is a large part of the appeal. “I hate what you hate. The things that piss you off piss me off, and I know it’s not fair.”
Leto
@Suzanne: I don’t know if you’ve seen the 1984 version of Red Dawn any time recently, but it came on a few weeks ago and I watched it because I hadn’t in almost two decades. Watching it now I was kind of shocked at the just overt Libertarian/conservative messaging of the entire film. Especially because I was reading Rick Pearlstein’s “Before the Storm” and the messaging from conservatives back in the late 50s was the same as in the film.
Geminid
@CaseyL: There are a lot of Bete Noirs in the rose twitter Beastiairy. Speaker Pelosi is another.
cain
@Feathers:
I think you might be a bit out there on left field there on Few Good Men.
Instead, I think you might want go further back to the one man against all because incompetent govt – eg the movie Cobra, all of the Arnold S. movies, you’ll note that the 80s was filled of right wing propaganda in the movies. Dirty Harry is another one. Lots of that stuff had an impact on impressionable young folks in the 80s.
greenergood
This whole flag post has been interesting for me, but may be for a different reason. I was born in the US in 1956, and had a ‘difficult’ relationship with the flag in the last 70s due to Vietnam. My parents were staunch Rockefeller republicans and I was a start-at the-gate hippie, the flag wasn’t my go-to emblem. I moved to Scotland in the early 1980s and the Scottish flag wasn’t any great shakes, except for Scottish Nationalists campaiging for independence, which was regarded at the time as a futile exercise. Fast forward 20+ years, and Scottish independence is now a big deal, at which Prime Minister Boris Johnson and ministers are beginning to quake in their boots. Scotland’s last independence referendum was in 2014, and we were all threatened that if we didn’t stick with the United Kingdom, we’d be doomed to be cast into the Crack of Doom aka NOT in the EU. Then Brexit came along, and now we’re told we have to stay in the United Kingdom, because Brexit is SO MUCH BETTER than staying with all those garlic-eaters in the EU – and Scotland is saying ‘NAW, we like garlic and vacations in Europe without visas, and students getting to go to college in Munich without paying an enornous visa bill, and German students getting to come to Glasgow without paying an enormous visa bill, and care workers from Europe coming to help care for old folks in our nursing homes, etc., etc.’ so Eff off – we’ll have a referendum and stay in the EU. And one of the results is a growing Independence movement that loves to fly the Scottish flag (White cross on blue background – unfortunately part of the Confederate flag background), But we are told this proliferation of flags is evocative of Nazism and fascist nationalism, because Boris will not admit to be capable of distinguishing between fascist nationalism and civil nationalism.
germy
JPL
@Bobby Thomson: Not only the flag, but telling us who was the patriot, while suggesting not you. I hated him for that, more the stupid mission accomplished crap.
dmsilev
Rose Twitter is going to have an aneurysm:
“Biden hires all-female senior communications team, names Neera Tanden director of OMB”
(WaPo)
NotMax
@Suzanne
Had the means to do so existed, Tom Sawyer would have grown up to create Amazon.
:)
Yutsano
@CaseyL:
I know next to nothing about her save that she gets under Rose Twitter’s skin. It’s mostly because she makes them show their work. It’s not Mayhew’s elegant 218-60-1-5 breakdown, but it’s not far off.
raven
@Leto: If you get a chance watch the doc on John Milius.
cain
@Villago Delenda Est:
Matthews has a number of verses if I recall that fundies ignore.
Suzanne
@NotMax: Tom Sawyer would have grown up to be a Berniebro, yo.
Matt McIrvin
@germy: Oh holy shit, the Bernie-or-Busters are going to bust a spleen. Neera Tanden is SATAN to them, and I’ve never been able to even figure out why.
zhena gogolia
Our very own Mary G has a letter published in the print edition of the NYT Magazine today. At least I think it’s her. I don’t see her on this thread, but I was excited! It’s in praise of the post office.
cain
@dmsilev: All women of color as well. In fact, I’ve seen him consistently putting in PoCs in charge. The Biden administration is probably going to be filled with people who don’t look ilke those self proclaimed patriots – gosh they are gonna hate that.
dmsilev
@Yutsano: I’m pretty sure her original sin was not being sufficiently reverential towards Senator Shouty McSocialism. Being “her” rather than “him” I’m sure didn’t help either.
topclimber
I am the guy who made sure his son did the honor guard thing as a boy scout, so he would feel proud of America. I am the guy who sings the national anthem at a baseball game while most of the crowd is calling for the beer vendor. I am the guy who told radicals they were idiots for burning the American flag when what we wanted was our country to be worthy of waving it.
I am the guy who agrees we must not give up the flag as a symbol of what America can be. But I am also the guy who knows America at its best is the bridge to a new world, where our flag will be a global one. Until we pledge allegiance to our singular world, we will never actuate whole world solutions.
Geminid
@Geminid: But Neera Tanden is particularly Noir, because she has forcefully pushed back against left criticism of moderate Democrats. The rose twitter crowd love to dish it out, but they can’t take it.
Matt McIrvin
Rose Twitter is going to be 100% behind Trump in 2024.
mrmoshpotato
Well put, Ms. Cracker.
Leto
@raven: I’ll add it to the queue; thanks!
CaseyL
@Yutsano: Aah, that’s why they hate her: She doesn’t put up with bullshit. I like that!
Lots more people are thrilled, not only with Tanden, but with Biden naming so many women and POCs to high-ranking Administration positions. I wonder if he’s strategizing how to get his agenda working even if McConnell plays games with Cabinet confirmations.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: Why?
OGLiberal
@Gary K: Because Ohio was such a Confederate state. Or PA, or upstate NY. Fucking racist idiots.
ETA: Also, didn’t WV secede from VA because VA was a slave state? Pretty certain you’ll find plenty treason flags in WV. But, then, I don’t think the seceded because they were staunch abolitionists.
NotMax
@Matt McIrvin
All 12 of them.
//
Ruckus
@brantl:
I agree, shitforbrains5 – gwb, didn’t do the US or the world any favors whatsoever. His level of destruction of so many things, his asinine financial bullshit, his war, his level of continuing us down the road of total non democracy towards fascism or whatever the fuck it was, his accepting the office when he’d actually lost….. IOW making the country worse, the world worse and paving the way for shitforbrains6, his recession that personally financially destroyed my life – among of course many, many others, he only looks better than the republicans latest disaster. They have gotten worse with every major republican politician since shitforbrains1 – nixon.
Here’s the shitforbrains roster.
shitforbrains1 – nixon
shitforbrains2 – ford
shitforbrains3 – reagan
shitforbrains4 – hw bush
shitforbrains5 – gwb
SHITFORBRAINS6 – hell he’s just shitforbrains.
dmsilev
@WaterGirl: Neera Tanden is basically the Antichrist so far as Rose Twitter is concerned. Since Biden very definitely doesn’t let Twitter mobs jerk him around, he didn’t make this choice to deliberately spite them. They will, however, interpret it as such.
Roger Moore
@Geminid:
The misogyny is really glaring.
NotMax
@Ruckus
Harding as #0?
(Although arguably McKinley could comfortably fit into that slot.)
germy
Kattails
@Feathers: If you’re talking about Bernadette Banner with the Victorian clothing, I’m not sure how much she’s pretending to be an amateur. It seems more that she truly enjoys it, has an appropriately quirky personality, and I must say her videos are very well and carefully edited. Non-hearing people have also commented on how good her closed captions are. Th guinea pig is a bonus.
She grew up with scoliosis and had to wear a corset, which may have helped spark the interest. I’ve seen her reference some serious costuming books as well. I am kind of wistfully jealous of some of these new young women on Youtube who’ve taken serious interests and turned them into profitable ventures. Back in the Dark Ages of my youth, they might have been somewhat outcast for those same eccentric personalities. They also would not have had the reach to do what modern technology allows. I was doing crafts, calligraphy many years ago and my reach was so much more limited, even as a juried member of a state crafts guild. So, good for them.
If you’re not referencing her, then oops/oh well.
NotMax
@dmsilev
Empty barrels make the most noise.
efgoldman ’em.
Feathers
@CaseyL: Neera Tanden was an advisor to Hillary Clinton. During the 2016 campaign she called Matt Bruenig out on his bullshit, only for him to call her a scumbag who wanted to see welfare mothers and their children starve. Why? The 1994 Clinton welfare reform act, signed when Tanden was in law school. Bruenig then got fired from a think tank where he had a side gig, because he refused to stop with these sorts of attacks, which he had a long history of making against women, especially women of color, if they had the slightest disagreement with him. There was also the issue of when Bruenig blasted someone, they were then inevitably in for several days of relentless harassment from anonymous trolls and bots. He told the think tank he knew nothing about this.
Here’s a 2016 Vox piece about the dustup by Matt Yglesias, in which he pretends to not understand what is going on, and dismisses the women who show evidence of targeted harassment as the cost of crossing the Bruenigs. I was actually home and bored the weekend all of this went down, so as far as my memory goes, the Bruenigs were being seriously disingenuous, put up a GoFundMe about being fired during his wife’s pregnancy for one tweet about Neera, rather than an ongoing history of harassment that had been reported over time to his Black woman boss. Also leaving out the fact that he could have kept this job if he had agreed to stop attacking women online while employed at a leftist think tank. Also leaving out that this was his side gig while being employed full time as a lawyer at the Labor Department. Sady Doyle did not help her case with her tweeting that weekend, but did have receipts to show that this had been going on for a while and that the Bruenigs knew and were happy about, if not co-ordinating, the fact that trolls were going after women they had tweeted ugly shit at.
So, she is the deadly enemy of the B*rnieBros, despite agreeing with them 99% policy wise. Really glad Biden is hiring her. She seems to get a lot done and is unafraid of standing up to bullies. Yeah, Rose Twitter is unhappy. Sorry to go on about this, but people seemed to know something, but not what the actual problem was.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@CaseyL:
LOL!
mrmoshpotato
They’re eating each other.
germy
@Feathers:
This is funny, though:
opiejeanne
@cain: They’re very much not fond of The Sermon on the Mount. They wave it away, dismissively calling it an aberration.
germy
@mrmoshpotato:
“I never dreamed I would eat my own face!” cries top official from Leopards Eating Faces Party.
mrmoshpotato
Oh 2003! Such a more innocent time of Rethuglican, war-mongering, flag-humping trash!
Feathers
@Kattails: Yeah, I guess the main one is Bernadette Banner, but there does seem to be a thing where professionals step over into the amateur realm and push out the actual amateurs. I guess I’m just annoyed at how what was fascinating outreach by professionals and talented amateurs during the blogging era has become professionals turning lifestyle vloggers in the YouTube era. And that the content is a lot worse.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: LMAO! Well done, sir!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Wonder if the intercept’s Chief Tara Reade Correspondent thinks this tweet is Great With Portent
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
“Now watch this drive.”
“Gimme a T.”
“Gimme an O.”
“Gimme an R”
“Gimme another T”
“Gimme a U.”
“Gimme another R”
“Gimme an E.”
“What does that spell?”
“FREEDOM!”
“I can’t hear you!”
“CHENEY!”
glory b
@Feathers: Reminds me of Tom Nichols, “The Death of Expertise.” I wonder if he ever made the connection with the Disney style movies you mention.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: W: “America doesn’t torture. Now watch this torture.”
Citizen Alan
@opiejeanne: I actually LOL’d at Fred Clark’s explanation of how the Left Behind crowd viewed the Beatitudes. Basically, they think it doesn’t apply to Earth at all. The Sermon on the Mount is how the afterlife is going to be for the Real True Christians ™ after all the non-believers–which includes most Christians who don’t believe in Rapture theology–are weeded out and sent to Hell forever.
burnspbesq
@dmsilev:
Hopefully that will happen many miles from the nearest ER.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
They should support someone who they will never accuse of betraying them.
Kattails
@Feathers: I skip most of that, who has time anyway, gotta keep up with BJ! Although I see that Banner’s latest youtube is “how did they pee in those clothes”, which I’ve always wanted to know. My pet peeve are the videos by someone who obviously took a two week online course in, say, calligraphy, practiced for a couple of months, and now feel qualified to teach it.
But I do appreciate that hand work in general is coming back and being valued. For a while there things were pretty demoralizing. “Why do we need calligraphers? You can just do it on the computer.” Heard it twenty years ago, just heard it again a couple of months back.
Roger Moore
@Citizen Alan:
You’ll see something like this for just about every Biblical verse that makes Mammon and Moloch worshipers uncomfortable. Their core method is to treat the Bible as a set of disjointed passages that have to be understood individually, rather than as a coherent text with an overarching philosophy that can best be understood by reading it holistically. That way they can take each uncomfortable passage and dissect it individually without having to explain why their interpretation conflicts with other passages.
Chyron HR
@Matt McIrvin:
More so than usual?
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: I listen to church radio from time to time, and I got a good laugh once when some preacher explained that the passage from the Sermon on the Mount, “the meek shall inherit the earth,” actually meant that “the meek will be satisfied with what they have!”
zhena gogolia
@Chyron HR:
Right.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
I agree.
I watched guys grow older while never growing up/maturing at all and often they were regarded as stronger/smarter because they “overcame” the odds. They didn’t, they were just fuckups who got lucky.
lgerard
So now MAGA trumptard State Senator Doug Mastriano who organized last weeks show trial in PA tests positive.
Everything he touches……….
Geminid
@Kattails: Speaking of hard work, how is the foundation repair going? I trust your house is still standing.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
They absolutely could fit in there but I was considering during the lifetime of quite possibly only the living. You’d have to be 98 or older to be alive at the end of Harding’s 2 yrs and 120ish to be alive in McKinley’s.
CaseyL
@Feathers: Now I really like her!
Geminid
Kattails: Now I see you were talking about “hand work” coming back. I guess the repair could be called hard hand work. But it sounded like you have a good person to do it.
JaySinWA
@Barbara: I don’t think T is thinking strategically, just trying to maintain the public adulation. Using the campaign as a way to claim politically motivated prosecution is just a side effect. T dead enders will parrot and amplify that. It will be lobbed by the T team PR against any legal proceeding against him or his children. It may not work in court, but it may have political effects that make LE and prosecutors tread lightly.
WaterGirl
@dmsilev: I have never even heard of her!
The Moar You Know
Of all things. My flag sticker for the car is showing up Monday.
Kattails
@Geminid: Probably dead thread, we have two shiny new ones up, but thanks for remembering! The guy that took a look said he could do it no problem, similar to what my esteemed colleagues here said; in the meantime the place isn’t going to fall down. I should get a post up there asap & then it can be jacked up a bit. No frost under there unless the rest of the house freezes in which case I have other problems! All I need is $$.
Fair Economist
@CaseyL:
Rose Twitter is deploying the same demonization techniques used by the right against people like Saul Alinsky. They call them evil masterminds over and over again to the point that people believe it in spite of the fact that they’re quite decent people and not all *that* important. It’s the two-minute hate made real.
brantl
@Kent: Eisenhower gave us Nixon;
Patricia Kayden
Another Scott
@Feathers:
;-)
If her appointment helps the Twitter mobs to self-destruct, more’s the better.
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@brantl: And months of planning for the Bay of Pigs.
Cheers,
Scott.
206inKY
Hamilton the Musical helped with reclaiming the flag.