Quick Take: The Left Is Vexed

Just when you think that the comrades have bottomed out...

How dare they hoist this symbol of militarism and evil…?

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Every other day, it seems, I find myself asking: How stupid is the Left? Well, consider the Great Alito Fascist Flag Scandal.

As a vexillologist, I’ve taken a particular interest in this prize specimen of lamebrained leftie agitprop. Its genesis was the horrifying revelation that sometime after January 6, 2020, the Stars & Stripes was seen to be flying upside down at the home of Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Samuel A. Alito. Hoisting the national flag in that manner has long been understood to signal danger or distress, and the comrades instantly concluded that Justice Alito was expressing his solidarity with the MAGA fascists who’d stormed the Capitol in an attempt to destroy “our democracy.” On the strength of this atrocity, they demanded that he recuse himself from any cases touching on the January 6 riot.

But as it turned out, (1) flying the Stars and Stripes upside down has never been a MAGA thing, and (2) the flag flown upside down at the Alito residence had to do with a quarrel between the Justice’s wife and a neighbor. But never mind! Comrade Congressperson Alexandia Ocasio-Cortez pitched one of her trademark mean-girl hissy fits; Senator Dick Durban, Democrat Doofus of Illinois, decried Alito’s “ethical misconduct.” Could it get any stupider than that? Why, yes—it could!

Justice Alito’s MAGA fascist flag waving turned out to be even worse than first reported. In a bombshell story, the New York Times reported that the Appeal to Heaven Flag, had been spotted flying over the Alito vacation home in New Jersey. This “provocative symbol,” as the NYT reporters described it, supplied further proof of the Justice’s sinister MAGA sympathies. Bill Kristol, who used to be a level-headed conservative before the Ogre Trump drove him mad, wailed that the Appeal to Heaven Flag is a symbol of evil “whose spirit is hostile to the constitutional order and the rule of law that the Supreme Court is to uphold.”

I am laughing so hard.

The Appeal to Heaven Flag, white with a green pine tree and the motto AN APPEAL TO HEAVEN, is also known as the Washington’s Cruisers Flag. That’s right: It’s associated with that notorious slave-owning, white-supremacist, tyrannical patriarch and probable homo/transphobe, George Washington. No wonder the NYT reporters collapsed onto their fainting couches. No wonder Bill Kristol fudged his frillies. Seriously, though, flags featuring a pine tree were common in colonial New England before the Revolutionary War. The Washington’s Cruisers Flag was one of the earliest naval ensigns of the United States. Other historical American flags that give progressives the shivers are the several variants of the Don’t Tread on Me flag, one of which serves today as the United States Navy jack. I confess myself surprised that AOC and her Squaddies haven’t demanded its replacement by the Red Banner or perhaps the Palestinian flag. They have no problem with those rags, do they?

Of course, such hysteria is typical of the Left. Indeed, there’s no more telling evidence of the comrades’ estrangement from the American mainstream than their visceral loathing for the symbols of America. The ruins of the Twin Towers were still smoldering when egregious twits like author Barbara Kingsolver began wringing their hands over displays of the Stars and Stripes. To them, it was no more than an evil symbol of militarism. They would probably have objected to the raising of the Stars and Stripes at Dachau on the day of its liberation by American soldiers.

Here at Chez Gregg, one of the home improvement projects on the agenda is the erection of a flagpole. Besides the Stars and Stripes, we’ll hoist the historical flags of America, most definitely including the Appeal to Heaven Flag. Now that I know how deeply it disturbs the comrades, I’ll be sure to fly it often.