I am no historian, but at least in my lifetime, I cannot recall a President who inspired local people to fly flags with his name on them outside their homes.
Some of this may have to do with the ease of printing and design in the 21st Century, but this really is something new. At least I've never seen anything like it.
After Lincoln died, people displayed Lincoln likenesses, and that long train ride from Washington, D.C. back to Illinois--people lined the route and people wept openly after FDR and Kennedy died, so there was a personal connection for many with the President. But this is different. Nobody's died.
This Trump flag thing is something different in my mind.
Hitler inspired the Germans to public displays of affection, and, for all I know, Franco and Peron may have as well. There was a time after World War II when German magazines were not allowed to run Hitler's photo on their covers, for fear people would frame them and hang them in their homes and businesses.
But these are flags outside homes, on porches. In America.
I saw them on a car ride through Buck's County Pennsylvania last Christmas, along with rebel flags, but mostly alone, just flags with Trump 2020.
Is this simply brilliant marketing? But no, you can send a man a Trump flag; that doesn't mean he'll fly it.
On my bicycle rides through Hampton Falls, I see the flags. On Hidden Pasture road, on other roads.
The man can barely parse a sentence.
At least with Hitler, you could understand: he gave long, rousing, coherent, if vile, speeches and he appealed to something. Racial pride. Fear. Loathing of the other in a country defeated, humiliated. The Germans, one might imagine, had a sense of grievance. But where does that sense of grievance in America come from?
During Vietnam, in the 60's, we had the same thing: That hate which stoked the murders at Kent State, a class hate really. That was palpable. There was racial hatred, as colored people confronted institutionalized racism and Southern whites saw their privileged status challenged. There was the "moral majority."
Trump fans are no more loathsome than the "patriots" who hated the anti war demonstrators, who hated the hippies or hated the "Freedom riders." But at least, when George Wallace "with hate dripping from his lips" cried out, "Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever!" you knew what that was.
I don't really know what Trump love is.
I talk with folks every day from Haverhill and Methuen, Massachusetts and Salem, New Hampshire. On many topics, they seem normal. But then, you stray a little, and you discover they love Trump and they hate something, someone, but their hate and bitterness and resentment remain inchoate.
In some ways it's like those scrawls you see on walls: "Fuck you!" But you don't see those so much any more. You see more Trump signs than "Fuck you!" signs. Or maybe they are just the same thing.
In some ways, one has to believe this is just fate playing out the hand. If Gavin Newsom were the presumptive Democratic candidate, you could say, okay, now the pendulum is swinging back. There's going to be a real chance. But with Biden, a vessel so fragile one can hardly imagine his making it across a calm sea, much less a rough and tumble campaign--you have to be able to see what is coming.
I can make it to Canada on a single tank of gas, is all I'm saying.
Some of this may have to do with the ease of printing and design in the 21st Century, but this really is something new. At least I've never seen anything like it.
After Lincoln died, people displayed Lincoln likenesses, and that long train ride from Washington, D.C. back to Illinois--people lined the route and people wept openly after FDR and Kennedy died, so there was a personal connection for many with the President. But this is different. Nobody's died.
This Trump flag thing is something different in my mind.
Hitler inspired the Germans to public displays of affection, and, for all I know, Franco and Peron may have as well. There was a time after World War II when German magazines were not allowed to run Hitler's photo on their covers, for fear people would frame them and hang them in their homes and businesses.
But these are flags outside homes, on porches. In America.
I saw them on a car ride through Buck's County Pennsylvania last Christmas, along with rebel flags, but mostly alone, just flags with Trump 2020.
Is this simply brilliant marketing? But no, you can send a man a Trump flag; that doesn't mean he'll fly it.
On my bicycle rides through Hampton Falls, I see the flags. On Hidden Pasture road, on other roads.
The man can barely parse a sentence.
At least with Hitler, you could understand: he gave long, rousing, coherent, if vile, speeches and he appealed to something. Racial pride. Fear. Loathing of the other in a country defeated, humiliated. The Germans, one might imagine, had a sense of grievance. But where does that sense of grievance in America come from?
During Vietnam, in the 60's, we had the same thing: That hate which stoked the murders at Kent State, a class hate really. That was palpable. There was racial hatred, as colored people confronted institutionalized racism and Southern whites saw their privileged status challenged. There was the "moral majority."
Trump fans are no more loathsome than the "patriots" who hated the anti war demonstrators, who hated the hippies or hated the "Freedom riders." But at least, when George Wallace "with hate dripping from his lips" cried out, "Segregation now. Segregation tomorrow. Segregation forever!" you knew what that was.
I don't really know what Trump love is.
I talk with folks every day from Haverhill and Methuen, Massachusetts and Salem, New Hampshire. On many topics, they seem normal. But then, you stray a little, and you discover they love Trump and they hate something, someone, but their hate and bitterness and resentment remain inchoate.
In some ways it's like those scrawls you see on walls: "Fuck you!" But you don't see those so much any more. You see more Trump signs than "Fuck you!" signs. Or maybe they are just the same thing.
In some ways, one has to believe this is just fate playing out the hand. If Gavin Newsom were the presumptive Democratic candidate, you could say, okay, now the pendulum is swinging back. There's going to be a real chance. But with Biden, a vessel so fragile one can hardly imagine his making it across a calm sea, much less a rough and tumble campaign--you have to be able to see what is coming.
I can make it to Canada on a single tank of gas, is all I'm saying.
Mad Dog,
ReplyDeleteAgreed- can't think of another President with their own flags waving in the wind- but then those flags represent more than just Trump. You're correct-they are a big, bold, billowing "F*ck You" to the rest of us.... Well so be it...Biden must prevail, fragile vessel or not...If he fails I'll be right behind you on the way to Canada...
Maud
Ms. Maud,
ReplyDeleteI suppose that's part of it, like the "Don't Tread on Me" thing.
It's hostile, whatever it is.
Flying the Stars and Stripes is a friendly, warm, engaging thing. We are all Americans.
But is the Trump flag a middle finger?
Or is it like flying the Swastika? More of a proclamation of virtue and fealty to a cause?
Mad Dog