Trump Boasts His New Deranged Idea Would Thrill Putin and Kim Jong Un

In his appearance on Fox and Friends Thursday morning, Donald Trump proposed that protesters who vandalize the American flag should face jail time.

In light of flag burning that occurred at protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress Wednesday, Trump said, “I think you should get a one-year jail sentence if you do anything to desecrate the American flag.” His remarks echo those he made as president-elect in 2016 and again amid protests against police brutality in 2020.

Trump went on, “Now people will say, ‘Oh, it’s unconstitutional.’ Those are stupid people. Those are stupid people that say that. We have to work in Congress to get a one-year jail sentence.”

Many online were quick to point out that the sainted conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia would be among such “stupid people.” Scalia detested flag burning but opposed state coercion against it, joining the majority opinion when the court struck down anti–flag burning laws in 1989 and 1990.

Justifying his idea on Fox, Trump lamented that protesters who burn the flag project a weak image of America to the world, saying, “Putin and President Xi of China, all over the world they’re watching this—Kim Jong Un, he looks at us like we’re a bunch of babies.… That wouldn’t happen in their countries. It’s impossible for that to happen in their country.”

Indeed, such protest would be unthinkable in authoritarian countries like Russia and China, where flag desecration is punishable by imprisonment. But Trump would do well to consider that emulating these countries’ restrictions on symbolic speech, to quote an opinion Scalia joined, would undermine “the very freedom that makes this emblem so revered, and worth revering.”