Star Spangle THIS

I Want My Flag Back

Photo: The author, Governor Wendell Ford, and another runner, Frankfort, Kentucky, 1974

Record scratch* “Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got there”.

Critics quick to label me un-American these days should know that as a high school freshman in 1974 and the worst runner on our track team I was responsible for a statewide display of patriotism so simple but so grand it would have brought tears to Lee Greenwood’s eyes. My father was a local broadcaster and community guy. He took my idea and, with the American Legion and other city and state leaders, turned it into the Run For Old Glory, a high school relay from Fort Harrod in Harrodsburg, Kentucky to our state’s capital in Frankfort and then all the way to Ashland’s Putnam Stadium, with celebrations and hoopla along the way. Teams from West Virginia and Ohio joined. Among other mile-long shifts on the long route I had the honor of running up the stairs of the capitol to present the flag to Governor (later U.S. Senator) Wendell Ford, who gave a speech before handing the flag to the next runner who trotted back down the steps en route to Ashland.

I remember the hot miles on the shoulder of I-64, the vans of runners hydrating in between their stints on the pavement, and the cars and trucks honking in support of us as they passed. People cheered. Us, but mostly the flag. Unironically. Sincerely. Though meticulously planned the Run was received as a spontaneous, simple, and even joyful part of America‘s Bicentennial celebration that was around the corner. In a few years I would take an oath to Army service under the flag we carried. I never thought I served the flag itself or that it was a sacred object. It was a symbol, like all flags, and its meaning depended upon us entirely. At the time I thought it meant hope; hope that we could be better here, and, hope for others abroad, as well.

Fifty-two years later I would still be the worst runner on your track team. Everything else has changed, though. The Republican de-evolution that became a revolution when Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980 has finally so thoroughly poisoned the country’s ethos, brand, and how it projects itself to the world that I hesitated this morning, the flag again in my hands, before placing it outside the house for the Fourth. The “broad stripes and bright stars” that survived that famous “perilous night” in 1812 have been dragged by Trump and MAGA through the White House septic tank of their lies, avarice, racism, and incompetence. Now when they fly it here and abroad they intend that it has a meaning quite different than it did when we carried it down the highway in 1974. They use our flag as a threat. They use it arrogantly, not proudly, which are two different things. They use it in conquest, not aid. They use it . . . for themselves. Children overseas die from starvation and disease because we‘ve ended aid and they die from American bombs while oversized pickup trucks fly enormous American and Trump flags as tools of intimidation, not celebration. The so-called Patriot Front marches under the flag while cosplaying as America‘s Nazis. Like the disastrous and pathetic 250th national birthday celebration, Trump has turned the flag itself to his own purposes and damaged it in the process.

I‘ve drawn so many American flags as a political artist. I‘m tired of drawing them soiled by urine, mud, or blood in an effort to represent the way Trump and the Republican Party at all levels have soiled the nation itself. I want to fly my own flag without wondering if I’m collaborating or even just expressing approval in some small, unintentional way, with this regime. I want to stand for the national anthem without it being a betrayal of those who don‘t stand, for very, very good reasons. I want my country back. I want my flag back.

Maybe the World Cup is a step in this direction. The world - and, importantly, Americans - watch our diverse mostly non-white team, over half of whom have dual citizenship, wearing our flag as jerseys, represent us in this most global of events. Trump‘s petty and belligerent conduct (and his actual war against Iran) aside the World Cup has provided the platform it reliably does for unironic celebration of country and, well, flag waving. The good kind. The kind that unites. That is inclusive. That could again be a symbol of hope.