Flagsploitation

We begin, as we must when discussing matters of appalling taste, with Donald Trump. The billionaire developer has run afoul of the California Coastal Commission over an oversized flagpole in front of the Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes. The giant staff

looms 70 feet over the money-green landscape and 54 feet over the city’s height limit for “accessory structures.”

The Donald’s conspicuous mast (oh dear) was grudgingly approved by the Rancho Palos Verdes City Council with the proviso that the commission would have the final say. Trump stalled the process when he somehow couldn’t come up with the commission’s $10,000 evaluation fee. He said: “If the Coastal Commission wants to rip down the American flag, we’ll see them at the Supreme Court.” Trump is the John Dillinger of grandstanding.

This is not the first time citizen Trump has done battle with flag-hating collectivists. In October 2006, he got into a similar row with Palm Beach city officials when he unfurled a dwarfing, weather-generating flag over his Mar-a-Lago estate, a flag 15 times larger than permitted by ordinance. The city fined, he sued, and the whole matter was settled with Trump glorying in himself as if Palm Beach were Mt. Suribachi.

As much as I hate to break up the man’s narrative, Trump’s flags clearly and gallingly violate the United States Code regarding flag etiquette. Chapter 1, Title 4, Section 8 (i) states that “the flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever.” Trump’s mega-flags flap over places of business--namely, golf courses and the private club at Mar-a-Lago.

In a season when the fate of the republic could turn on a little flag--like the one absent from Barack Obama’s lapel--the greater sacrilege are these absurd, star-spangled spinnakers flying over car dealerships. There are dozens of such flags across the country; as near as I can tell, the largest is a 50-by-80-foot monster on the grounds of Glenbrook Dodge Chrysler Jeep in Fort Wayne, Ind. That’s several times the size of the flags over the Capitol. Last year, Towbin Hummer of Las Vegas was ordered to take down a 30-by-60-foot flag after neighbors complained of the loud flapping. Town council members predictably felt the nativist boot, scorned as communists, fifth columnists and Mexicans.

You may, if so inclined, believe these mega-flags are oversized statements of oversized patriotism, or you may see them clearly: as promotional tools that are, by their very nature, immune to challenges of good taste and zoning ordinances. These are flags wrapped in the flag, so to speak, and constitute a particularly sleazy form of flag exploitation. I know, it’s hard to believe car dealers could stoop so low.

Advocates of seen-from-space flags can only fall back on the argument that if a big flag is good, a giant flag is better. That’s like saying the national anthem is more meaningful when played louder. It’s moronic.

The use of flag imagery in ads for mattress sales and stereo warehouse blowouts, the imprint on plastic bags and seat cushions, the use of the flag as part of an athletic uniform (sorry, New England Patriots)--all of these are forbidden in unambiguous language in the U.S. Code. Nobody seems to care. The flag has been diminished to mere belligerent noise: flag spam.

I recognize that I am an unlikely defender of flag etiquette. After all, I’m a college-educated, progressive, secular-humanist liberal, and people like me hate America, right? And it’s true, whenever someone starts channeling Nathan Hale I start looking for the exits.

To worship the flag is to goose-step down a very unpleasant road, and it seems to me the United States is as far down that road as it has ever been. From Plan Columbia to Operation Iraqi Freedom, the current government has made it hard to be proud of my country (oh God, echoes of Michelle Obama). And yet, I do still love it.

How can liberals recapture the flag? In the breach of flag decorum, I see an answer: Fly the flag upside down. Filmgoers might remember the dramatic closing shot of “In the Valley of Elah,” in which Tommy Lee Jones’ character, grieving his dead soldier son, turns the flag blue field down. As we were taught in Boy Scouts, the upside-down flag is a sign of distress, a request for assistance. Help. This seems like an eloquent statement, not as inciting as burning the flag--indeed, not disrespectful at all. To anyone who says that the flag symbolizes all who fought and died for this country, etc., I say, yes, right, and I want to honor them with a gesture that says, Your country is in dire straits. If you’re in doubt, ask a Boy Scout.