What’s the point of flying a flag, staking a yard sign, or slapping a bumper sticker on your car with a political message? I’ve been wondering this as I consider what flag I should fly on my house’s flagpole. I’ve been laid up with a difficult pregnancy for a couple months—unable to do much of the volunteering or protesting or anything else I’d want to do as the opposition to Trump’s second-term policies tries to organize itself—and in a fit of desperation to do something, anything, I’ve thought that maybe I should fly a flag. I’m picky, though, and I worry a slogan-sized message will be misconstrued.
I do not love the first few options I find online. Many of them aren’t very specific. “Democracy Dies in Silence”? For sure, but one could easily imagine this flag flown at an antivax protest or in opposition to other supposed government overreach. “Love Not Hate Makes America Great” is a little closer to the mark—it at least involves the rhetorical twist on Trump’s rallying cry—but it’s still not clear what my demands are.
There’s the self-satisfied “In this house we believe” type. “Vote like Ruth sent you” is very girl-power, and “With fear for our democracy, I dissent” is very #Resistance. “Are we great yet? Cause I just feel embarrassed”: as the smarmy right-wing podcast bros like to say, facts don’t care about your feelings. “Keep the immigrants, deport the racists” is clever, but I don’t really want anybody to be deported. Flying a flag that says “A lot of you didn’t pay attention in history class and it shows” or “Unwilling participant of an idiocracy” is unlikely to win you a hearing with your neighbors. Same with plain old “Foxtrot Delta Tango.” (I felt this way about Let’s Go Brandon, too: Don’t be a coward. If you mean it, say it!)
I’m drawn to the more policy-specific ones. “No one is illegal on stolen land” has something right about it, but I’d need four more flags underneath it to qualify what I mean. “Healthcare is a right” sounds good, but what’s the policy that comes with that? Some of the flags I could fly without additional comment—“Public schools are the foundation of a strong democracy” and “Defend free press”—make me sound like a dork.
Finally, I find a message that’s specific and timely, one I can wholeheartedly endorse: “Prison without due process is a concentration camp.” A bit legalistic, but at least it’s confronting a horrible abuse head-on. I feel good about this one and click Add to cart. Estimated arrival: one to two weeks.
While I wait, I still wonder about the point of a flag or a sign or a bumper sticker. Is it to express frustration or to change people’s minds? Is it to support people who are suffering and afraid or to make yourself feel better? Many of these flags are clever, or inane, or cringe, but I’m dismayed that their purpose often seems to be to express rage and identify an in-group and nothing else. Rage is a valid feeling right now, of course, and it can be vital to know who’s on your side when ICE shows up or you’re afraid for your trans child’s safety. But expressing rage and group-identity can’t be the end of political communication. I worry that for too many privileged people, it is.
And, well, aren’t I about to fly a flag in part to make myself feel better? I’d love to think that its perfectly pitched, reasonable-but-direct message will change the minds of passersby, but on its own, it won’t. We can get caught up in finding the right package for our message, workshopping our ideas to death rather than building support for them. That’s not to say we should rally around an inane message—what does “Radicalized by basic decency” mean, anyway?—but we should be willing to have our differences subsumed into a clear, common purpose. That’s what a flag does, really. The American flag, the Pride flag, the Marine Corps flag—they’re capacious enough to allow for some difference and diversity while also uniting members in a common cause. It’s not that every individual needs a flag that perfectly expresses their specific message. They just need something to rally around even amid disagreement.
We’re going to need a lot more rallying than flag-waving if we’re going to stand up to the injustices of the Trump administration. We’ll need that clarity and common purpose if we hope to back the many Trump supporters who will also be hurt by his policies. That’s harder than flying your own flag. And that’s precisely the point.
