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Johns thought it a “simple-minded” technique. But he learned from Japanese printmakers how to make a multi-layered, sophisticated version that subverted the Warholian clarity of the method. He gleefully said the result, Flags I, “might properly be considered an abuse of the medium”. It takes pop printmaking into unfathomable layers of technical finesse. But Evans, the sociologist, says it won’t be easy to make the flag a unifying symbol again. It’s hard to rally around civil religion, he says, “in societies that are divided about who is really upholding the true standards of the nation.” And in post-Trump America, Evans predicts, that division is unlikely to end. QAnon is a sprawling online conspiracy theory whose adherents believe Trump is leading a crusade against a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who encompass a majority of the nation’s elites, including politicians, celebrities and executives. The loosely organized group exists largely online and follows cryptic messages and instructions from an anonymous person known only as Q. The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has said the QAnon belief that elites are abducting children to harvest their blood for a chemical used to extend people’s lives is a variation of an anti-Semitic trope that has existed for centuries. Its online campaigns under the hashtag #SaveOurChildren have also been used as an anti-LGBTQ dog whistle. In 2020, QAnon believers began to coalesce around anti-mask and anti-vaccine coronavirus conspiracy theories. Tom Birkett, a lecturer in Old English at University College Cork in Ireland, explains that many of the symbols Chansley wears are from Norse mythology. However, he explains, “ these symbols have also been co-opted by a growing far-right movement,” and Chansley appears – from other tattoos he wears – to be among them.
But there were other flags, familiar to most Americans only through textbooks, now appropriated by the seditionists. The Join or Die flag, for instance, featuring a bisected snake first drawn by Benjamin Franklin. A variation of the Betsy Ross flag, where the 13 stars encircle Roman numerals for three, representing the three percent of Americans that anti-government groups believe fought against the British alone in the Revolutionary War. And in a particularly chilling video, an injured policeman lies curled on the pavement next to a discarded Betsy Ross flag . Why does a red, white and blue-striped flag sound so familiar? Oh, Russia. It’s the Russian flag. Donald Trump was colouring the Russian flag. Nothing to worry about here. Everyone move on. The important thing to note is that whether or not the casual viewer can understand what it means, they need to know that it means something” Brooks says. “Because otherwise [the rioters] would not have it.”
As he watches the 2024 primary calendar, Trump stokes and internalizes it all. Already, he is lobbing the words “pedophile” and “groomer” towards his main challenger, DeSantis. Those collective bonds were fraying before Trump hit the scene. To some on the left, for instance, the flag became a stand-in for every terrible act that had been done, through history, on the nation’s behalf. But the partisan divisions grew worse during the Trump administration. Gaskins points to polls that show that civic pride dropped precipitously among Democrats after Trump took office. A YouGov poll from 2018 showed a 26 percentage-point gap between Republicans and Democrats when asked whether they felt patriotic. A 2018 Pew poll found that Republicans were twice as likely as Democrats to believe it’s important to fly the American flag.
At its core, the flag is a simple warning – but to whom, and from whom, has clearly changed. Gone is the original intent to unite the states to fight an outside oppressor. Instead, for those who fly it today, the government is the oppressor.Like others in the militia movement, Three Percenters view themselves as defending the American people against government tyranny.
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