After the bloviated weirdness of Trump’s Nuremberg-Rally-style ‘celebration’ at Mount Rushmore on July 3, 2020, I’ve noticed a common thread on social media feeds.
Ordinary non-Trumper Americans, especially people of color and LGBTQIA folks, are *flinching* at American flags.
Because now there’s a deadly calculus going on in our heads: “Is that flag being flown by a gun-toting, mask-fearing Covidiot white supremacist who might kill us?”
I have white privilege: I remember the unadulterated pride and joy at seeing our flag everywhere in 1976. I love my flag, for the best of what it stands for.
Even just a few years ago during the Obama administration, our nation had problems but at least we managed this.
I’m white and middle-aged. In the right clothes and west Texas accent I can blend easily into a Trump rally (and have).
I’m tired of assholes flying Confederate flags like they aren’t symbols of traitors and losers…twice over, now.
I’m tired of conservatives who were so bothered by a competent, smart black man winning the US Presidency (twice) that they lost their collective shit. I want smart, kind lawmakers. At this point, I’ll never trust a Republican candidate again.
I’m tired of rightwingers stealing red, one of my favorite colors. The irony is that in the 80s, they hated red as a ‘commie color’. Now they’re Russian tools. I want red back. I’m taking it back. Wait until you see what I can do to a red baseball cap.
I’m tired of ‘Boogaloo’ white domestic terrorists who flaunt Nazi & Confederate flags, weapons, acid bombs, and other murderous stuff…often while wearing bright, cheerful Hawaiian shirts. Hawaiian shirts have their own unique history. I want Hawaiian shirts back…those despicable thugs can wear prison-orange.
I’m tired of the lethal perversion of Christianity that is today’s hypocritical Evangelicalism, and how it distorts a genuine force for social and intellectual good.
I’m tired of our police and military being infiltrated and guided by white supremacist Christian Dominionists.
I’m tired of the self-serving people and forces that have made stupidity and anti-intellectualism so powerful they may shatter this nation.
At the same time, surveillance and information technologies have become more pervasive. In the wrong hands, these tools only accelerate economic and political divides.
As a former Republican and current Independent, I’m also angry with the usual Democratic circular firing-squad. It’s a tribalism that often snatches defeat from the jaws of victory. We can’t afford that now. We have to work together: not just to evict Donald Trump and his Grifter Cabinet, but to push back on the mindset that made his ascent possible.
Bluntly, Fox News & Rupert Murdoch have to go. As a nation and a culture, we need fact-checking.
In the middle of a pandemic and global climate change, we’re whistling past our own graveyard.