People love flying flags. Not simply the Stars and Stripes—flags of their state, their metropolis, their alma mater. Final 12 months, three flags had been flown outdoors Supreme Court docket Justice Samuel Alito’s New Jersey trip residence: the flag of Lengthy Seashore Island, the place he summers; a flag commemorating the Philadelphia Phillies’ 2022 Nationwide League championship; and the Enchantment to Heaven flag, often known as the Pine Tree flag.
The final of those caught the eye of The New York Occasions. The Pine Tree flag, which dates to the Revolutionary Struggle, has turn into a logo of the far proper. The Occasions had beforehand reported that an upside-down American flag had flown outdoors Alito’s Virginia residence in January 2021—a gesture of protest that had been adopted by the professional–Donald Trump “Cease the Steal” motion.
Alito defined that his spouse had inverted the flag to sign displeasure with some querulous neighbors, and that she had flown the Pine Tree flag with out realizing about its “Cease the Steal” affiliation. However the incidents raised considerations that the flags revealed political opinions that will coloration Alito’s judgment in instances earlier than the Court docket.
Vintage American flags, obscure international ones, and a bunch of newly designed banners at the moment are widespread wherever parts of the far proper congregate, whether or not in actual life or on-line. An array of flags dotted the crowds outdoors the U.S. Capitol on January 6— symbolic weapons that generally was precise ones: A number of rioters used flagpoles to assault cops or destroy property. After the tried assassination of Trump in July, a few of his supporters circulated a picture of a tangled American flag, by which they noticed the define of an angel—an indication that the previous president had been the beneficiary of divine safety.
Understanding what these sometimes-recondite symbols imply can make clear how extremist ideology is evolving. Under is a information to among the most distinguished symbols.
The Betsy Ross flag was created within the early years of the Revolutionary Struggle, although probably not by Ross herself. It has been co-opted by far-right teams to invoke revolution towards perceived tyranny. Some teams, such because the Three Percenters, a right-wing militia, have spun up new variations of the flag, incorporating their very own symbols inside the circle of 13 stars.
Traditionally, flying the American flag the other way up was a means for sailors to point misery or to name for assist. Within the Sixties and ’70s, it was utilized by Vietnam Struggle protesters. (Opponents of the battle additionally burned U.S. flags, a observe that has been much more widespread on the left than the appropriate.) Now components of the American proper are bringing again the upside-down flag, to protest the 2020 election and, extra lately, Donald Trump’s felony conviction. Flying the flag the other way up when not in misery is a violation of the US flag code, although the code isn’t legally enforceable.
The Christian flag was designed within the Eighteen Nineties by a Sunday-school superintendent on Coney Island who is claimed to have needed a single flag representing the entire of Christianity. The flag remains to be utilized by Christians with out explicitly political connotations, nevertheless it has been flown at right-wing rallies in assist of the Christian-nationalist need to interrupt down the partitions between Church and state.
The Pine Tree flag first appeared on American naval ships in 1775. Because the 2010s, and particularly after the riot on January 6, 2021, it has been appropriated by members of the Christian-nationalist far proper, who need to rework America right into a theocracy. The phrase An attraction to heaven was taken from the British thinker John Locke, who wrote in his Second Treatise on authorities that males disadvantaged of their rights are justified in revolting towards their oppressors.
The Celtic Cross dates again to the Center Ages, or maybe even Late Antiquity. Although not initially a Christian image, it has lengthy been utilized in Christian contexts. Now it’s turn into a fixture at rallies for neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, and different white supremacists. It’s also a part of the emblem for a distinguished neo-Nazi web site, Stormfront. Norwegian fascists within the Nineteen Thirties and ’40s wielded an analogous model of the cross as their social gathering image, which has probably led to its fashionable utilization.
The Black Solar, or Sonnenrad, image was utilized by Nazis through the Third Reich. It consists of 12 lightning-bolt runes—just like those in a well-recognized insignia of the SS—organized right into a disk. It has appeared at neo-Nazi rallies world wide and has turn into a fixture of on-line memes. The image even confirmed up in a video shared by a Ron DeSantis marketing campaign staffer, which depicted the then–presidential candidate’s head within the middle of a spinning Black Solar. (The DeSantis marketing campaign fired the staffer.)
At a lot of Patriot Entrance’s marches throughout the nation, the white-nationalist group totes its signature flag, that includes an axe surrounded by a bundle of sticks. The fasces, as it’s identified, was a well-liked Roman image indicating a pacesetter’s energy, authority, and talent to punish his subordinates. Benito Mussolini and his allies adopted the fasces as an emblem and derived the identify of their motion from it: fascism.
The Groypers are a bunch of principally Gen Z white supremacists led by 26-year-old Nick Fuentes. Their exact numbers and affect are laborious to pin down; they’ve extra of an internet presence than a bodily one. Once they do present up in particular person, it’s typically with flags for “America First,” the identify of Fuentes’s motion. The phrase was initially popularized by President Woodrow Wilson and later utilized by Pat Buchanan and Donald Trump to their very own political ends.
Anybody who flies a flag for “Kek,” or the “Republic of Kekistan,” most likely spends an amazing period of time on-line, particularly on 4chan. Kek grew to become standard instead time period for LOL amongst gamers of World of Warcraft, and has developed to embody a complete ethos: trolling. The Kek flag is designed like a Nazi battle flag, with a spiral of Ok ’s round an E to interchange the swastika, and a 4chan emblem within the nook. Like the opposite right-wing symbols which were incubated on the picture board over time, it’s meant to set off outrage.
There isn’t a lot to say concerning the Trump Rambo flag, as a result of the flag itself says all of it. It was flown on January 6 by MAGA diehards, and is probably essentially the most distinguished flag in a style that reimagines Trump as imposing, bodily spectacular, and sometimes armed—together with Trump because the Terminator and Trump as a personality from the Japanese anime sequence Dragon Ball Z.
This text seems within the September 2024 print version with the headline “Crimson Flags.”
