Abusing the flag—again

Since becoming president, Donald Trump has used the flag to divide the nation.

Allow that to sink in.

Donald Trump, President Donald Trump, used the flag to divide the nation.

In a flagrant display of false, misguided patriotism, he has attacked athletes who are trying to draw attention to a debate effecting millions of Americans—how police and law enforcement treat Blacks.

These athletes have taken the patriotic stance that while America may be a great nation, in many instances, it acts badly. These athletes see America’s greatness in her ability to right wrongs, if only those wrongs can be brought to the forefront for a national debate. This is what our founders fought for. The right of representation, the right to confront unfair treatment and fix it.

Alexis de Tocqueville recognized this quality almost 200-years ago when he wrote in, Democracy in America, “The greatness of America lies not in her being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”

Trump does not understand this. He has used patriotism as his own personal weapon of choice, pulling it out to get his way, whenever debate and mutual understanding would have been more effective weapons.

He questions the patriotism of the athletes because it is the easy thing to do. He does the same with Democrats, the press, members of Congress, the families of American war heroes, and virtually anyone else who disagrees with him.

Donald Trump, the man who refused to fight for his country when given the opportunity, has chosen decades later to wrap himself in the flag as his go-to defense. Not to defend the greatness of the country, but rather to separate himself from those who actually understand what the flag represents. In Trump’s mind, these people hate the flag and hate the nation; and so he hates them.

We’ve gotten used to him using the flag to divide us. We don’t like it, but as the old adage goes, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” Trump is a cranky, old dog on his best days. To use James Joyce’s words, he’s also “The old sow that eats her farrow.” Like that sow, he can’t help himself.

This week, the president did learn a new trick. Instead of focusing on athletes’ refusals to stand for the national anthem, what Trump calls disrespecting the flag, he has put the flag, itself, front and center in one more effort to divide the nation. When it comes to Trump’s lack of understanding just what patriotism is, he’s got the issue covered coming and going.

Every rule of thumb, every rule of protocol dictates that the flag should be flown at half-mast to recognize the passing of an American hero and to console a nation in mourning, Trump refused to lower it, choosing instead to fly it high—for the entire nation and the world to see, as if nothing had happened. Nothing to see here, says the man who sees nothing and understands less.

His pettiness and refusal to honor a man deserving of everyone’s respect for his unwavering service to country has again divided the nation. Only this time, the division will most certainly be between him and 300-million Americans, who don’t wake up every morning with an ax to grind.

It has been said that the White House is the people’s house. As long as Trump resides in it, it will be nothing more than Trump’s house. The nation he divides rather than represents lives elsewhere.

I served in Vietnam at the same time as McCain. My service, far removed from battle at a brigade HQ’s, more resembled McCain’s time at the naval academy from all accounts. This while he was languishing in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

Although light years apart in the conditions under which we served, we were both answering our nation’s call. Trump was ten thousand miles away tending, as he always does, to his own needs.

It would be decades before Trump learned the true power of the flag and, to his disgrace, the damage he could inflict by misusing that power.

Last week, Trump’s closest friends and associates turned their backs on him. This week, after using the flag to divide the nation for the past two years, Trump turned his back on the flag and what it represents.

Now he stands alone. He still has supporters—people like him who are only in the game for what they can get out of it. It is anybody's guess what he or they actually stand for.