Flag day is next week – as it happens, the very day I’m scheduled for a colonoscopy. (Coincidence?) That said, it has felt like flag month – or even flag year – in this obligatory cheap seat reality show known as the Trump era. Literally must-see t.v., right? This past week we were treated to the hilarious spectacle of our trust-fund baby president with his hand over his heart, faking his way through a martial rendition of God Bless America by what looked like the Marine band. (Bad Lip Reading did a good version of this.) The occasion was Trump’s decision to un-invite the Philadelphia Eagles over the National Anthem “take-a-knee” controversy, which he exploits as a means of race-baiting and working up his bigoted base.

This transparent political ploy prompted some complaints among talking heads that this was in some way unprecedented. Nothing could be further from the truth. The national anthem, the flag, all of these superficial patriotic symbols have been used for political purposes pretty much my entire life through. Nixon rolled out the flag all the time, as did Reagan. The now-sainted George H.W. Bush made the pledge of allegiance a kind of litmus test for patriotism during the 1988 election. And protests like flag-burning become a major culture-war issue from time to time, particularly when the Republicans are in power and they have little else to complain about (because they’re getting their way).

So aside from being a far more transparently pathetic pantomime, there’s nothing unprecedented about a president demagoging the flag, the national anthem, etc. Trump is just talking to that 25 to 30 percent of the U.S. population that would follow him off a cliff and then back up the mountain again. He may be a big, greasy, over-privileged ball of shit, but to them he represents the very embodiment of white aggrievement. The bulk of his followers – not all working class by a long shot, by the way – respond to this kind of symbolism as well as his complementary attacks on people of color, with particular attention to those who attain some level of status (like professional athletes).

Reality television has taken over the Republic – that’s kind of new. But speaking as someone who has lived through the Nixon administration, the Iran hostage crisis, 9/11, and more, wrapping abusive politics in the flag is anything but.

luv u,

jp