By Jonathan Middlebrook
My pal—you may call him Al—has a problem:
Some years ago he began to fly the American flag upside down on his property. Perhaps because he'd been a Boy Scout 7+ decades ago he knew the U.S. flag code: "The flag should never be displayed with the union (stars) down, unless as a signal of dire distress." Al thought circumstances even before 6 January, 2021, direly distressful enough to warrant his blazoning forth Old Glory, inverted.
If asked (rarely) about desecrating the Stars and Stripes Al would quote the code and say "Guess I'm thinking that both sides can agree that our representative democracy is in dire distress."
Al's neighbors are civilized as well as patriotic. Vexillogical discussions would end with a handshake & perhaps arrangements for lending some seldom needed yet right now necessary tool, as well as an unspoken agreement not to talk politics.
Al never had to resort to the legalism that the U.S. federal flag code is enforceable only in D.C., nor to claim that he was simply repurposing a motif from a somewhat dull film ("The Last Castle," 2001) starring Robert Redford and James Gondolfini. Remember The Sopranos? A more interesting mob show than the Trump White House?
But then, along came the torch-bearing Proud Boys parading in Charlottesville.
On 6 January 2021 they were no longer "stepping aside & standing down" as then President Trump told them to do in the Presidential debate on 29 September 2020. They were invading the Capitol & beating Capitol Police with First-Amendment-Protected speech devices, flagstaffs bearing upside down U.S. flags.
Somehow the anguished meaning of our inverted star spangled banner –dire distress– had been transmogrified to a device useful to those MAGA Republicans who wish to destroy the republic for which that banner stands...that's MAGA Republicans and their fellow traveling Republicans who ever-so-privately express concern about their party's candidate.
Within a week or so of 6 January 2021 the MAGAtized Stars and Stripes flew over SCOTUS Justice Alito's lawn. The NYTimes (dateline 16 May 2024) reported the fact (with photograph) and neighbors' statements, & by 17 May Mr. Justice Alito was telling Fox News that he had nothing to do with flying our Grand Old & now MAGA-appropriated upside-down Flag on the pole in the family yard.
His wife done it, the Justice said.
What a gent! He didn't even invent a white lie to protect her. 'Twas Martha-Ann Alito who displayed that perverted device on their flagpole. It was her guttersniping response to a neighbor's vulgar yard sign, "F**k Trump." Neighbors in the gutter together. Hubby looking away.
Apparently it did not occur to Justice Alioto to suggest to Mrs. Alito that some passers-by knew that one of the 9 final arbiters of U.S. law lived in that modest house and flew an insurrectionist guidon. Those passers-by experienced, at the very least, that arbiter (or his wife) creating their (or her) appearance of the improper conduct which SCOTUS frowns upon in its recently adopted (13 November 2023) and non-binding code of ethics.
Canon 2 of that code is titled in caps: "A JUSTICE SHOULD AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY IN ALL ACTIVITIES" and specifies: "A Justice should respect and comply with the law and act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary."--Or . . .
Nothing.
The SCOTUS code of conduct specifies no consequence (recusal from Trump-related cases?) for Justice Alito's impropriety. For now it's up to Mr. Justice Alito to police and sanction himself. What are the odds on his recusing himself from ruling on Trump's legal shenanigans when they have slow-crept up to SCOTUS?
All of which leaves my pal Al in a tough spot. He and his neighbors know what he meant by upside-downing the Red, White and Blue. But now?
Al's symbolic vocabulary of lament for our shining, perishing republic which has been so kind to him is diminished by one muddied signifier (Old Glory.) What does the chatty UPS driver make of Al's once-unambiguous, sincere, breeze-whipped guidon? How about the Chemgas driver? The deputy sheriff? AT&T repair crew? Jehovah's Witness? Secret Service? FBI? (Al once mentioned to me that he has a record with them.) For such people there's something slightly unusual in the air.
It stinks and is more than a little ominous.
* * * *
Note: Nothing I write here applies to Liz Cheney, to Adam Kinzinger or Michael Steele, or to the 20 percent of Republican voters who still support Nikki Haley and have wan hopes of reviving the principled GOP as they believe it to have been.
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