Today is Flag Day. June 14th. The day we honor the Stars and Stripes — the flag that men and women bled and died for across two and a half centuries. The flag that came close to bombing a country back to the stone age and still may do it.
And the “No Kings” crowd is back in the streets. Again.
Let me get this straight. You want to make a statement about American democracy, so you pick the one day set aside to honor the American flag to wave your protest signs around? That’s your big move?
These folks claim they’re the real patriots. That protesting on Flag Day is actually the most American thing you can do. The organizers even say the flag “belongs to us” — meaning them, apparently, not the other 330 million people trying to enjoy their Sunday.
Flag Day has been on the books since 1949 — Act of Congress, not a presidential proclamation, not a partisan invention. It commemorates June 14, 1777, when the Continental Congress gave us the Stars and Stripes. It predates every living person in this country and every political grudge any of us is carrying.
Yes, it’s also Trump’s 80th birthday. And yes, there’s a UFC fight on the White House lawn, which is its own kind of spectacle. Believe me, I’m not blind to the irony of the birthday boy wrapping himself in the flag too. But none of that changes what Flag Day is supposed to be about.
You don’t get to claim you’re honoring America while using Flag Day as a backdrop for a political concert starring Bette Midler and Hanoi Jane Fonda. That’s not patriotism. That’s theater.
Fly your flag today. That’s the whole point.
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