Monday, 15 November 2004

Recapture the Flag

Mark A.R. Kleiman has a modest proposal for Democrats that makes sense:

Think about it: when you pass a car on the highway and see an American flag bumper sticker, what do you assume about the political views of the driver? Right. So do I. And so do all those voters whose behavior you simply can’t understand. At some level, many of them were voting for the party that wasn’t made uncomfortable by the sight of an American flag bumper sticker.

The habit on the anti-Vietnam War left of dishonoring our flag and honoring that of our enemies wasn’t really very widespread. But it wasn’t entirely made up, either. And its result was to allow the right to seize the flag as a partisan symbol, giving its candidates an advantage they still enjoy. If we want to start winning elections, the first thing to do is to recapture the flag for our side.

[After the Oklahoma City bombing, I proposed to the couple of contacts I had within the Clinton White House that the President should ask all Americans to fly flags and wear flag lapel pins as an anti-militia statement. But the idea went nowhere.]

So here’s my idea, which I offer to any seeker of the Democratic nomination for 2008 who wants to take it: ask your supporters NOT to put your bumper sticker on their cars without a separate American flag bumper sticker, or to wear your campaign button without an American flag lapel pin. Yes, that will make some of your potential supporters uncomfortable. But that’s exactly the problem we’re trying to solve.

He also has some thoughts on the role of ceremony in national unity that are worth reading.

1 comment:

Any views expressed in these comments are solely those of their authors; they do not reflect the views of the authors of Signifying Nothing, unless attributed to one of us.
[Permalink] 1. flaime wrote @ Tue, 16 Nov 2004, 11:48 am CST:

The flag has been taken over by people who aren’t patriots, they are zealots. I also don’t understand this obsession with equating an ENTIRE NATION to a piece of cloth. Sure, it’s a piece of cloth that represents the history of our nation, in some ways, but it’s still just a piece of cloth. The United States of America is more than 13 stripes and 50 stars, and our self-image shouldn’t be boiled down to that, which is what Kleiman and the neo-cons and the wing-nut zealots keep trying to do.

 
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