Well, here I am in LA. I saw a car driving on the highway with a Mexican flag, and it was obeying the law (at least staying in its lane). I saw someone running in a race draped in a Mexican flag. I didn't take offense. I assumed they were not advocating for a foreign sovereign to have special rights to send their citizens here without accountability. Rather I assume they were using the Mexican flag to signal that they care for family and friends in this community of immigrants. Now, my cousin who lives here pointed out that the extensive graffiti I saw in downtown LA was new. And a restaurant owner shared with us that these protestors were mostly well-behaved, but did sometimes "break things." But I accept that people are frustrated and angry. I would guess that they have friends who are here illegally and they worry that they might get caught and deported. I understand where they're coming from.
Now, the person whose Trump flag you saw -- I don't know who he or she is. I would guess -- and this is merely speculation -- that they feel sold out by the establishment, which is a common thread in populist causes. Which is not hard to understand, with millions of manufacturing jobs having been sent overseas in the last few decades. (Now white collar jobs are being sent overseas in similar numbers.) The fact the borders were wide open for four years may be contributing to this person's angst (I'm listening to Congressman Ritchie Torres D-NY make exactly this point). If someone feel hopeless, they might want to be represented by a fighter. Someone who's not necessarily nice. Maybe they voted for the wrong person, but I think we have to let everyone make that decision for the reasons that make sense to them.
Now you describe this flag as a "provocation." But so are protests, especially those which are "mostly peaceful" but not entirely so. You describe this flag-waver as a member of "these people," but do you actually understand who they are? You said that these flags represent a "minority" which makes them even more "petty" -- but I'm not so sure that's accurate for upstate counties, and even if it were, do not "minorities" deserve extra space to make their points?
These are the questions I was left with after reading the first part of your article.
First up, kudos on yet another half-marathon. Third place barefoot is no small achievement!
Also, thanks for posting your thoughts. I know you and I can always share them and expound upon them in person, and I'm also aware that with your military background you may have had more reason to think about flags and nations than most. I have written a couple of other posts this year that talk about the subject in general and at least one that referenced the flags that Trump voters continue to fly. (And the difference in optics and purpose between flags and yard signs, a subject I am surprised I have not seen better columnists than myself pontificate on!)
I passed this flag again yesterday, driving the back way to Phoenicia for a Father's Day hike. (Thankfully with a son in tow!) It is about 10'x10', maybe larger, it hangs ACROSS the driveway from tree to tree and it has the Make America Great Again slogan, albeit not as large as the five letters of the leader it declares its fealty to. To defend my choice of words, the particular area we are talking about, and I know you know this for yourself, is very very Dem-leaning, so the person is a minority (not that there is anything wrong with minorities!) and I will stick to that as fact. (I take your point about the Upstate counties in general. Ulster leaned Harris-Waltz; I checked before putting up my feature.)
In a functioning democracy where we respect different people's sense of social and economic values that are reflected in a multitude of political parties and electoral choices, we may well advocate for our own choices, by putting up our yard signs, knocking on people's doors, making the telephone calls, and perhaps, if we are the loser or the winner, holding on to those statements of choice that we post outside our houses for a short while longer. I've been there as winner and loser and in both cases, a week or so is usually enough. In my own neighborhood, where to be fair most people did not put up yard signs or flags last October/November, the Dem-leaning ones came down quickly. The 4 visual Trump flags (of various sizes, thankfully none on the scale referenced above) still fly. So yes, I do see the flying of giant flags as provocative in purpose, and petty in nature this long after the election.
After 2016, and returning from that trip round the world where the goodwill instilled by the Obama Presidency had made residents of the USA feel welcome around the world - suggesting that America was perfectly Great at that point already, but America is a lot more bigger than the USA, a geographical misunderstanding that seems commonplace unfortunately - I did make an attempt to understand why "these people" (a couplet I used on purpose, it can carry pejorative associations as a kind of code, and I am aware of that) had voted for someone clearly unqualified to run a country, someone filled with hate and maliciousness. And I have listed some of the reasons some of the same people voted the same way in 2024 again further down this article. And I stick to the same conclusions, which is that unfortunately I feel that *some* of those voters don't want a democracy after all. Regardless of whether they feel let down by the global capitalist system, there are those who have made a choice of aligning themselves visibly and vocally, and provocatively, with someone who has, and leaving aside the hatred and maliciousness that is visible at all times, also showed complete disregard for the democratic process - per the real Insurrection of Jan 6 2021. Having lived here through this last decade, I do therefore draw a parallel between size of MAGA flag, its stated words, the flag-flier's degree of fealty to the man who would be King, and their disregard for our Democratic process when it doesn't go their way.
I hope that helps, and I hope you can get through the rest of the article. It is long!
I hear you on the size. BTW, I had a bumper sticker and yard sign and I took them down after the election, to your point, because the contest was over and time to put aside differences and move forward together
In your comments I hear something which is a fundamental concern to me as well: democracy is about individual freedoms (compared to other regimes). but i fear that freedom has little value without opportunity. it’s like when William Lewis Manley commented on the trek into Death Valley, “a vest pocketful of powder and shot would last a good hunter till he starved to death, for there was not a living thing to shoot great or small.”
hence my comment on the outsourcing of jobs overseas, which I view as the root cause of lots of frustration, including but not limited to those flags
This last couple of days has been Tony Fletcher Weekend for me!
I flew over from Berlin to Manchester for a gig, and am staying at a friend’s house, where I found your Keith Moon biography sitting on his bookshelf. And then a stroll around Didsbury found me encountering Boy About Town in Oxfam, which I duly purchased and was reading right up until I was distracted by this epic piece on democracy with a small ‘d’ and how, despite our best intentions to kill it, we shall, in the end, always overcome and return, perhaps only briefly and sporadically, to our better selves.
A terrific piece, Tony, and I look forward to diving into Boy and Moon when I return to Berlin; another great city that knows a thing or two about idolatrous fealty to a man and his madnesses.
Cheers!
PS Also very recently read your big piece on the Smiths here (can’t remember if I commented, but will go back now and ensure I do), and I will confess it made me rethink my ever less than favourable view of them. But my unease with, or rather indifference to, the worship they receive is borne out by my growing up in Manchester at the same time as young Stephen, and sharing some of the same experiences (I even met him once in 78-79?, but was more taken by Linder than I was him!), and loving the same music, but diverging completely with his view of what Manchester was and is today. But opinions are like the proverbial arseholes; everyone’s got one, and so I’ll just have to accept mine differs from his. And now, not that I feel vindicated in any way, his complete degradation into whatever he is today - racist, unpleasant, and contradictory for contrariness’ sake - makes a reappraisal of his and the Smiths catalogue problematic in the extreme.
But I have always conceded the brilliance of Marr, Joyce and Rourke. Just not little Stephen…ha-ha!
Not sure whether to be flattered or embarrassed that you are spending so much time in my company, or is that me spending time in your company. Either way, I am grateful that when my books DO show up in Oxfam it is not for long! Boy About Town is by far the shorter read and in fact ideal for your return plane journey.
And thanks for the compliments on the articles. Indeed, I make the point in this piece here about countries that can turn quickly, and I was certainly thinking of Germany and Italy and Spain as all seeming very desirable countries to live in right now though each of them spent far too much of the 20th Century under self-declared Fascist leaderships that, especially in the first of those cases, embroiled their people and the rest of the world in horrific bloodshed. We can not assume the USA is incapable of a similar slide, but this past weekend finally gave cause to hope the slide can be slowed for the time being.
As for The Smiths, I don't believe you did post earlier and I can only repeat that for me, not listening to them so much these days but going through the entire catalogue for my presentation and for the podcast, I fell back in love with them. Seeing and hearing them as a group frozen in amber for those five glorious years, even recognizing that different individuals were on different trajectories and that they could only possibly intersect for so long, felt almost as good as the excitement from first time round. I hope you can have a similar retro journey.
Leaving the UK (or home country, wherever that might be) and setting up home elsewhere is certainly a challenge, not always a smooth ride but, in my experience, inevitably a satisfying one, once all things have been considered that is. No regrets whatsoever from my side !
Glad to hear it Ben. I don't believe in regrets! I would still like to live somewhere else in the world that doesn't start with the word "United" and I hope to do so, but for now... Well, you read the article! Cheers.
Well, here I am in LA. I saw a car driving on the highway with a Mexican flag, and it was obeying the law (at least staying in its lane). I saw someone running in a race draped in a Mexican flag. I didn't take offense. I assumed they were not advocating for a foreign sovereign to have special rights to send their citizens here without accountability. Rather I assume they were using the Mexican flag to signal that they care for family and friends in this community of immigrants. Now, my cousin who lives here pointed out that the extensive graffiti I saw in downtown LA was new. And a restaurant owner shared with us that these protestors were mostly well-behaved, but did sometimes "break things." But I accept that people are frustrated and angry. I would guess that they have friends who are here illegally and they worry that they might get caught and deported. I understand where they're coming from.
Now, the person whose Trump flag you saw -- I don't know who he or she is. I would guess -- and this is merely speculation -- that they feel sold out by the establishment, which is a common thread in populist causes. Which is not hard to understand, with millions of manufacturing jobs having been sent overseas in the last few decades. (Now white collar jobs are being sent overseas in similar numbers.) The fact the borders were wide open for four years may be contributing to this person's angst (I'm listening to Congressman Ritchie Torres D-NY make exactly this point). If someone feel hopeless, they might want to be represented by a fighter. Someone who's not necessarily nice. Maybe they voted for the wrong person, but I think we have to let everyone make that decision for the reasons that make sense to them.
Now you describe this flag as a "provocation." But so are protests, especially those which are "mostly peaceful" but not entirely so. You describe this flag-waver as a member of "these people," but do you actually understand who they are? You said that these flags represent a "minority" which makes them even more "petty" -- but I'm not so sure that's accurate for upstate counties, and even if it were, do not "minorities" deserve extra space to make their points?
These are the questions I was left with after reading the first part of your article.
Hi Kenneth,
First up, kudos on yet another half-marathon. Third place barefoot is no small achievement!
Also, thanks for posting your thoughts. I know you and I can always share them and expound upon them in person, and I'm also aware that with your military background you may have had more reason to think about flags and nations than most. I have written a couple of other posts this year that talk about the subject in general and at least one that referenced the flags that Trump voters continue to fly. (And the difference in optics and purpose between flags and yard signs, a subject I am surprised I have not seen better columnists than myself pontificate on!)
I passed this flag again yesterday, driving the back way to Phoenicia for a Father's Day hike. (Thankfully with a son in tow!) It is about 10'x10', maybe larger, it hangs ACROSS the driveway from tree to tree and it has the Make America Great Again slogan, albeit not as large as the five letters of the leader it declares its fealty to. To defend my choice of words, the particular area we are talking about, and I know you know this for yourself, is very very Dem-leaning, so the person is a minority (not that there is anything wrong with minorities!) and I will stick to that as fact. (I take your point about the Upstate counties in general. Ulster leaned Harris-Waltz; I checked before putting up my feature.)
In a functioning democracy where we respect different people's sense of social and economic values that are reflected in a multitude of political parties and electoral choices, we may well advocate for our own choices, by putting up our yard signs, knocking on people's doors, making the telephone calls, and perhaps, if we are the loser or the winner, holding on to those statements of choice that we post outside our houses for a short while longer. I've been there as winner and loser and in both cases, a week or so is usually enough. In my own neighborhood, where to be fair most people did not put up yard signs or flags last October/November, the Dem-leaning ones came down quickly. The 4 visual Trump flags (of various sizes, thankfully none on the scale referenced above) still fly. So yes, I do see the flying of giant flags as provocative in purpose, and petty in nature this long after the election.
After 2016, and returning from that trip round the world where the goodwill instilled by the Obama Presidency had made residents of the USA feel welcome around the world - suggesting that America was perfectly Great at that point already, but America is a lot more bigger than the USA, a geographical misunderstanding that seems commonplace unfortunately - I did make an attempt to understand why "these people" (a couplet I used on purpose, it can carry pejorative associations as a kind of code, and I am aware of that) had voted for someone clearly unqualified to run a country, someone filled with hate and maliciousness. And I have listed some of the reasons some of the same people voted the same way in 2024 again further down this article. And I stick to the same conclusions, which is that unfortunately I feel that *some* of those voters don't want a democracy after all. Regardless of whether they feel let down by the global capitalist system, there are those who have made a choice of aligning themselves visibly and vocally, and provocatively, with someone who has, and leaving aside the hatred and maliciousness that is visible at all times, also showed complete disregard for the democratic process - per the real Insurrection of Jan 6 2021. Having lived here through this last decade, I do therefore draw a parallel between size of MAGA flag, its stated words, the flag-flier's degree of fealty to the man who would be King, and their disregard for our Democratic process when it doesn't go their way.
I hope that helps, and I hope you can get through the rest of the article. It is long!
Thanks Ken, safe flight home.
Tony
I hear you on the size. BTW, I had a bumper sticker and yard sign and I took them down after the election, to your point, because the contest was over and time to put aside differences and move forward together
In your comments I hear something which is a fundamental concern to me as well: democracy is about individual freedoms (compared to other regimes). but i fear that freedom has little value without opportunity. it’s like when William Lewis Manley commented on the trek into Death Valley, “a vest pocketful of powder and shot would last a good hunter till he starved to death, for there was not a living thing to shoot great or small.”
hence my comment on the outsourcing of jobs overseas, which I view as the root cause of lots of frustration, including but not limited to those flags
Thanks Ken, appreciated.
This last couple of days has been Tony Fletcher Weekend for me!
I flew over from Berlin to Manchester for a gig, and am staying at a friend’s house, where I found your Keith Moon biography sitting on his bookshelf. And then a stroll around Didsbury found me encountering Boy About Town in Oxfam, which I duly purchased and was reading right up until I was distracted by this epic piece on democracy with a small ‘d’ and how, despite our best intentions to kill it, we shall, in the end, always overcome and return, perhaps only briefly and sporadically, to our better selves.
A terrific piece, Tony, and I look forward to diving into Boy and Moon when I return to Berlin; another great city that knows a thing or two about idolatrous fealty to a man and his madnesses.
Cheers!
PS Also very recently read your big piece on the Smiths here (can’t remember if I commented, but will go back now and ensure I do), and I will confess it made me rethink my ever less than favourable view of them. But my unease with, or rather indifference to, the worship they receive is borne out by my growing up in Manchester at the same time as young Stephen, and sharing some of the same experiences (I even met him once in 78-79?, but was more taken by Linder than I was him!), and loving the same music, but diverging completely with his view of what Manchester was and is today. But opinions are like the proverbial arseholes; everyone’s got one, and so I’ll just have to accept mine differs from his. And now, not that I feel vindicated in any way, his complete degradation into whatever he is today - racist, unpleasant, and contradictory for contrariness’ sake - makes a reappraisal of his and the Smiths catalogue problematic in the extreme.
But I have always conceded the brilliance of Marr, Joyce and Rourke. Just not little Stephen…ha-ha!
Anyway, again, I loved this piece. Ta!
Hi Mark,
Not sure whether to be flattered or embarrassed that you are spending so much time in my company, or is that me spending time in your company. Either way, I am grateful that when my books DO show up in Oxfam it is not for long! Boy About Town is by far the shorter read and in fact ideal for your return plane journey.
And thanks for the compliments on the articles. Indeed, I make the point in this piece here about countries that can turn quickly, and I was certainly thinking of Germany and Italy and Spain as all seeming very desirable countries to live in right now though each of them spent far too much of the 20th Century under self-declared Fascist leaderships that, especially in the first of those cases, embroiled their people and the rest of the world in horrific bloodshed. We can not assume the USA is incapable of a similar slide, but this past weekend finally gave cause to hope the slide can be slowed for the time being.
As for The Smiths, I don't believe you did post earlier and I can only repeat that for me, not listening to them so much these days but going through the entire catalogue for my presentation and for the podcast, I fell back in love with them. Seeing and hearing them as a group frozen in amber for those five glorious years, even recognizing that different individuals were on different trajectories and that they could only possibly intersect for so long, felt almost as good as the excitement from first time round. I hope you can have a similar retro journey.
Cheers Mark,
tony
Leaving the UK (or home country, wherever that might be) and setting up home elsewhere is certainly a challenge, not always a smooth ride but, in my experience, inevitably a satisfying one, once all things have been considered that is. No regrets whatsoever from my side !
Glad to hear it Ben. I don't believe in regrets! I would still like to live somewhere else in the world that doesn't start with the word "United" and I hope to do so, but for now... Well, you read the article! Cheers.
Well said, my friend. See you out there today! ✊🏼🇺🇸
Indeed!