Flying My Colors
October 31, 2024 – David R. Weiss
The whole flag episode on Tuesday caught me off guard. I’ve never been the flag-waving type. But there I was, calling my local hardware store and asking with felt urgency whether they had—in stock—an American flag, on a pole, with a mounting bracket. Of course, they did. Multiple options.
I drove over and settled quickly on the “Eco-Glory” (yes, I rolled my eyes at the name): aluminum pole, mounting bracket, and a 100% polyester flag fashioned from eight recycled bottles. And 100% made in the U.S.A. For someone in a committed relationship with over thinking things, it’s nothing short of remarkable that less than an hour after I had the urge and made the call, I had the bracket mounted on our front deck railing and an American flag furling in the early evening breeze. Yesterday I even tracked down and bought a pair of solar spotlights so I can illumine the flag from either side with the nightfall coming early now.
Whence this surge of … patriotism? The word itself makes me nervous. But this election makes me even more nervous. Grieved. Unsettled. Angered.
Never in my lifetime have I witnessed a politician (or campaign) so focused on demonizing others. So relentless in belittling fellow candidates, other politicians, and any American citizens whose views and values differ from his own. So fashioned around whetting the public appetite for division and violence. So openly courting our worst human impulses.
It’s true, not everyone who votes for Donald Trump is misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, white Christian nationalist, pro-authoritarian, or openly ecocidal. THAT’S ABSOLUTELY TRUE. But listen. I’m speaking now to my family and friends who plan to vote for Trump or who imagine some smug superiority in choosing neither candidate as though the differences are not monstrous.
(I have friends so dismayed by Harris’ complicity in Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza they cannot support her. I respect that profoundly principled and morally complicated choice, even as I chose to vote for Harris.)
BUT LISTEN: Almost every voter WHO IS misogynistic, racist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, white Christian nationalist, pro-authoritarian, or openly ecocidal, IS VOTING FOR TRUMP.
Let’s be painfully clear about this.
Almost every voter who regards women as most appropriately second-class citizens with no right to reproductive choice—not even birth control!—is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every voter who views people of color as fundamentally and essentially less than white people—and whose voices and votes should therefore be limited in every way possible—is HOPING Trump gets elected.
Almost every voter who regards lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender persons (among whom I count dozens—DOZENS!!—of friends and family) as disordered or worse—and whose civil rights and medical care should thus be forfeited—is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every voter who regards immigrants, especially those of color (with or without documents), as intrinsically threatening to our country is HOPING Trump gets elected.
Almost every voter who believes that God has ordained white people to rule(!) this country, to subjugate all other peoples, cultures, morals, and beliefs to some distorted and fundamentalist strand of Christianity is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every voter who thinks America should be ruled by an authoritarian dictator (and there are powerful elites who cultivate this notion)—is HOPING Trump gets elected. Almost every American voter who is eager to see repression, imprisonment, and violence wielded against “the enemy within”—“the left” (that’s me!)—is HOPING Trump gets elected.
And almost every voter who openly disregards the overwhelming scientific certitude about climate change and the desperate need to change our lives, most especially our use of fossil fuel—lest we wantonly destroy the future of our own children—is HOPING Trump gets elected.
You may not desire all these abominable things, but there are millions of voters who do—and they regard Donald Trump (and J.D. Vance!) as THE ticket to advance their nightmarish dream for America.
Is this really the company you choose to keep? The side of history you wish to stand on?!
This man is the most anti-Christian candidate who has ever run for the presidency. The fact that he wraps himself in the fawning embrace of some fundamentalist Christians only demonstrates the extent to which their beliefs and values—like Trump’s—are a direct betrayal of the teachings of Jesus himself.
There are some deep policy differences between Harris and Trump. And while I have been—and will continue to be—vocally critical of Harris on any number of policy positions, there is no question that, on the whole, Trump’s policy goals will do damage to America. They will erode human rights, civil rights, labor rights, and voting rights. Though he promises big gains for ordinary Americans, this is a mirage; his policies will work unfailingly to enrich the wealthy, empower corporations, fragment healthcare, and further despoil the planet. They will widen the gap between the rich and the rest of us. His immigration policy—utterly detached from history, economy, and international law—will accomplish nothing except to fan fear and civil unrest. His foreign policy will embolden authoritarian rulers to further abuse human rights, expand military conquests, and flaunt international law. He will undermine hope for democracy around the globe.
But even at that, this election is ultimately about more than policy differences.
It is fundamentally about personal character. And Donald Trump’s personal character is so deeply flawed as to be dangerous. His character represents a profound national security risk because it makes him prey to manipulation by foreign actors who will leverage his insecurities against our national security. I cannot believe that you don’t know this. And his character represents an equally profound domestic terrorism risk. His irrational anger at his political adversaries—whether they’re in office or marching in the streets—will drive him to abrogate civil rights as never before and his incendiary rhetoric will unleash waves of violence against all manner of targeted groups and persons (like me!). I cannot believe that you don’t know this.
I am aghast at Harris’ muted response to the genocide in Gaza (now effectively in Lebanon as well). I’ve written about this and made my views known to my Congressional representatives. I think many of her policy goals, while broadly liberal, remain structurally constrained by corporate interests. Still, I’m confident a Harris presidency will do some good, and much less harm than a Trump presidency. And I’m confident a Harris presidency will preserve my right to be a dissident patriot, allowing me to press her and others in government to craft policies that actually cares for people over profits. It’s a big ask, I know. To wrestle reality out of rhetoric. But I’ll make it. Persistently.
Which brings me back to that flag, still furling in solar-lit light long after dark last night. Trump has pretended for far too long that he and his campaign is all about “America.” That he—and his remade MAGA-GOP—have the only vision of America worthy of the flag. NO. Donald Trump’s vision is an abject betrayal of the ideals carried by that flag.
Fair enough: America has often only begrudgingly moved to embody its ideals—and that with kicking and screaming, civil war and many seasons of protest. But America is the dream of a country with liberty and justice for all. So, I’m flying my colors (right above my “radical left” yard signs) to make clear: the dream that is America is expansive and inclusive—and it belongs to all of us.
Donald Trump stands absolutely, arrogantly—and dangerously—against that dream. He drags the flag through the worst of our past and then flies it as a symbol for the moral atrocities he projects into the future—our future. No presidential candidate has ever so desecrated the American flag.
Such a man is not worthy of your vote.
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David Weiss is a theologian, writer, poet and hymnist, “writing into the whirlwind” of contemporary challenges, joys, and sorrows around climate crisis, sexuality, justice, peace, and family. Reach him at drw59mn@gmail.com. Read more at www.davidrweiss.com where he blogs under the theme, “Full Frontal Faith: Erring on the Edge of Honest.” Support him in Writing into the Whirlwind at www.patreon.com/fullfrontalfaith.