I almost took my flag down, but MAGA does not own the American flag

Margo Bartlett worked for newspapers and wrote columns for more than 25 years. She currently writes a column for the Worthington Spotlight. She can be reached at margo.bartlett@gmail.com.

A word about the flag that flies on my front porch.

It’s an American flag, of course. It hangs next to an Ohio flag, whose holder is attached to the opposite porch pillar.

For more than a decade, I’ve been ambivalent about displaying the flag.

For one thing, I believe the flag shouldn’t be the ubiquitous landscape accessory that it is. Years ago, as a newspaper writer, I interviewed two French exchange students.

Asked what they thought peculiar or confounding about American culture, they promptly offered two examples: the constant snacking, and American flags flying everywhere from high school stadiums to car dealerships to frozen custard stands.

Letters: The 'thin blue line' shouldn't go through Old Glory. Don't deface American flag

And that was before state and federal politicians began feeling naked without a flag pin attached to their lapels, before pickup trucks and motorcycles were whizzing by with multiple flags fluttering in the breeze, before candidates refused to take any stage that didn’t have American flags lined up cheek-by-jowl behind them.

Trump signs sprinkled gravel in oatmeal

A flag or maybe two once sufficed for a campaign speech backdrop; now many office hopefuls appear to believe patriotism must be delivered like a knockout punch to the nose.

Pow!

As a rural resident,  I’ve seen properties with multiple flags, buntings, star-spangled pallets propped on porches, Old Glory painted on barns and, to underline the message, dozens of small flags planted one foot apart along the property line.

And invariably, sprinkled among these extravagant nationalistic circuses, like gravel in oatmeal, like razor blades in candy, are Trump signs.

Always, in the flag outbreaks are signs extolling Donald Trump, a man who talks love of country and honesty and hard work, but who is known for, to put it delicately, not walking any of those walks.

Trump himself, of course, has been photographed clutching and even kissing an American flag, similar to the way a number of women have accused him of clutching and kissing them. Neither the flag nor the women are respected by such effusive obsequiousness.

Some citizens may think the photograph, taken at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference, endearing.

I find it odious.

It was my thought, even in the months before the 2016 election and for some time after, to strip my front porch of its flag and to let the bare pillar be my commentary on the current state of the country.

But I hesitated. The American flag, like the national anthem, belongs to everyone.

It stands for the highest ideals of the country formed nearly 250 years ago. It should not be appropriated by any one group, especially those who have forgotten or put aside those ideals in favor of money or power or political influence.

The flag stands apart from those who would subvert American principles, revise American history or use it like a club, figuratively or literally, on the heads of others. We must not surrender the flag and all it symbolizes to the frightening rise in nationalism that appears to be happening in this country.

The flag belongs to all American citizens, conservatives *and* liberals, Republicans *and* Democrats *and* third parties *and* independents. When the current hostilities are resolved, or at least somewhat resolved, no American should be in the position of reclaiming the flag.

It is ours. It was ours all along. That’s why I fly it.

Margo Bartlett worked for newspapers and wrote columns for more than 25 years. She currently writes a column for the Worthington Spotlight. She can be reached at margo.bartlett@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Has the American flag been seized as a symbol of Donald Trump?