That repugnant, impudent flag needs a spellcheck. Well, at least the first two letters are right.
Nothing should make any American’s blood boil more than seeing fellow Americans flying a flag clearly intended as a redefinition of their country in the name of an insurrectionist who has left an indelible wake of death behind him, a fomenter of political violence in his own name and for his own sake, a self-serving pathological liar hell-bent on installing himself as this nation’s all-powerful ruler. The proof of his and his ardent followers’ intent is too obvious.
What part of a violent insurrection in an attempt to overthrow democratic process and install a dictator remains unclear? What part of many Americans’ psyche has become so politically and morally deranged that anything feels right about embracing a self-proclaimed dictator and his deliberate actions that already have cost law-abiding Americans their lives from the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to the hundreds who perished daily in the fallout from the pandemic he labeled a hoax?
Among too many glaring negatives from the star of the TREASON flag is his continued communication with at least one foreign dictator, and big surprise, classified documents that the flag’s figurehead allegedly fought to keep illegally, documents that include information about U.S. nuclear programs. The line between insurrection and treason is a fairly fine one involving the presence or absence of providing help to an adversary, a line that many Americans quite reasonably believe has already been crossed.
The observable absence, in most cases, of a United States flag flying near the TREASON flag makes its intent all the more obvious. No one would get away with resurrecting the Confederate flag – too many potential dupes to alienate with that one – so how about a new one slathered with the glorious name of the leader of insurrection nation? This travesty of anything a flag should represent in some respects is no different than the bumper stickers many of us who grew up in the South remember too well. It featured the beatific glory of a Confederate flag adjoined to a battle cry, “Hell no, we won’t forget!” (In one version, a real prize of human intellect, “Hell no, we won’t fergit!”)
Here’s a guess as to how this sickness has picked up enough momentum to get us within sight of the summit of Mt. Stupid. (We already know the flag that would be plopped at the peak, don’t we?)
Remember tacitly agreeing with the kids in school who balked at learning history in the name of its personal worthlessness? “I’ll never need that. What does knowing who Benito Mussolini was or what he did matter? I’ll never use that.” “Why should I care what the Weimar Republic was?” Sure, it was drummed into our heads enough that all or almost all of us knew who Adolph Hitler was, and most of us probably still acknowledge the plentiful and undeniable proof of what he did, the prolific horror on a scale so enormous it’s almost – almost – understandable that some people prefer to try not to believe it. And what were two world wars fought over? Ah, what’s it matter? They’ll never use it.
Worse might have been our commiseration with the ones who resented having to study government and now resent it so much they don’t even want one. Define democracy. Define tyranny. Define dictatorship. Define communist, conservative, liberal. “Who cares?” they’d croak with indignant pseudo-wisdom. “I want a business degree, and I hate liberals – in spite of the fact that I can’t articulate to anyone what a liberal is.”
As with most people who don’t know government or history, they’re not afraid of a dictator. After all, he tells them he loves them and believes what they believe, even to the point of publicly applauding their lack of education, so they’ll be happy with everything he does, and they’ll get to force everyone who doesn’t agree with them and their fearless (make that fail-us) leader to live as they do. Plus, no more of those pesky elections and all those annoying campaign commercials interrupting The Golden Bachelor (because that’s where real life is lived, right?)
There’s no thought to the next one to seize power and flaunt it, not a moment’s consideration of a very different variety of self-righteous sociopath who rips away control – the tyrant who abhors them and their beliefs and will go after them and their families. “Oh, we didn’t know!” they’d cry, echoing the laments of many of Hitler’s public enablers. “We would never have voted for him if we had only known!”
And let’s not overlook the brain-trust bunch who must think that if it all goes bad, it can all be fixed in the next election. Really? The next what? How does a dictatorship work again?
Here’s the bottom line for all Americans, no matter what flag commands their allegiance: The first dictator we elect will be the last leader we’ll ever get to choose. Pass it on.