When Did The American Flag Become A Partisan Symbol?

Folklore says that the American flag was created in 1776, when George Washington asked Betsy Ross to sew a banner for what would soon be an independent nation. You can imagine the pressure that Ross, a simple upholsterer, felt. As she stitched the 13 stars and stripes that made up the first version of America’s flag, she would have known that she was participating in something that would alter the course of history. What Ross couldn’t have anticipated is how polarizing her flag would become in the very country she created it for.

Earlier this year, Vogue Magazine published an article titled “Can You Wear The American Flag Without Irony?". Writer Mattie Kahn poses the following question: “Can [wearing the flag] declare that America…can be kind of great, without risking association with the MAGA hordes?” The article chillingly admits that “For progressive-minded voters, visual patriotism has been consigned to the dustbin. … It’s not the flag that’s changed. It’s the connotation that has.”

This seems to be the modern consensus of both progressives and conservatives. If you proudly wear, fly, or display the star-spangled banner, your political stance is automatically assumed to lean right by people on both sides. And not just slightly right — if you appreciate the flag, you must be a hardcore, no-nuance, MAGA-loving, rigid conservative. The natural conclusion this line of thinking leads to is that right-wingers love America and left-wingers hate America. 

But this isn’t a conclusion that seems to bother those on the left. Many will tell you themselves that they feel no need to be proud of the country they live in, citing injustices both historical and modern. Patriotism is evil to them, which means the flag – the ultimate representation of patriotism – is absolutely loathsome. But this is a terrifying thought, because if the star-spangled banner doesn’t give people on both sides of the aisle something to rally around, what will?

It’s Not Just a Piece of Fabric

The progressive belief seems to be that if you’re proud of a flag, you must be associating yourself with every evil act that’s been committed in the name of that flag. To progressives, the American flag represents slavery, internment camps, and Native American genocide (to mention a few). Abandoning the flag – and, by extension, all displays of patriotism – is meant to demonstrate to the world how much you condemn these evils and how virtuous you are.

But a flag isn’t meant to depict the worst sins of a nation. America, like every other country on earth, is a messed up place where people in charge have done messed up things. (And to be honest, they still do messed up things.) The flag isn’t a memorial to these failures – it’s a lighthouse meant to guide us towards better ideals. Towards a more perfect Union. 

It’s a ridiculous idea to think that if you see flaws in your country, you should abandon patriotism altogether. What if George Washington had decided to give up on America because he only had amateurs in his army? We might’ve remained under British rule for centuries. What if Abraham Lincoln had decided to give up on America because he didn’t like slavery? He wouldn’t have been able to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Loving America means you believe in the higher ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and are committed to being part of the effort to bring this country closer to those ideals.

Any notable change in this country has always been engineered by people who were dissatisfied with its current state, but chose to remain patriots regardless. To love America doesn’t mean you blindly accept its flaws. It means you believe in the higher ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and are committed to being part of the effort to bring this country closer to those ideals.

What the Flag Really Means

It’s a terrible sign for national unity that the flag has become so divisive. America is a country where the most globally common symbols of national unity just don’t exist: We’ve never had a shared ancestry, state religion, or royal family to unite us like other countries do.

Because we all look, sound, and worship differently, there has always been a debate about what it means to be American. Someone from Louisiana would give a different answer than someone from Vermont. A Republican would give a different answer than a Democrat. A teenager would give a different answer than a senior citizen.

But the fact that we can all be so different in our backgrounds and beliefs yet still call ourselves Americans leads to a broader point. As Ronald Reagan once said, “You can go to live in France, but you cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to live in Germany or Turkey or Japan, but you cannot become a German, a Turk, or a Japanese. But anyone, from any corner of the Earth, can come to live in America and become an American.”

The essence of what it means to be American doesn’t come from a specific ethnic origin or political alignment. It’s a belief system – one founded on the principles of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is what the flag truly represents. It’s ironic, then, that the people who’ve disowned the flag are the very same ones who claim that they’re upholding the last vestige of democracy in America. 

What are the symbols of this democracy? An ever-changing pride flag? Different national anthems for every ethnic group? There’s nothing unifying about what the left would like to replace America’s traditional symbols of unity with.

Make Patriotism Cool Again

Social trends are abandoned just as quickly as they become en vogue, which is what we’re seeing right now when it comes to overt displays of patriotism. All of a sudden, it’s cool to like America again. First, there was Ralph Lauren’s oft-imitated flag sweater that went viral on TikTok last year. Then came Beyoncé’s country album Cowboy Carter, which was announced with undoubtedly patriotic imagery. And pretty soon, we’ll have a country album from Lana del Rey, longtime queen of the Americana aesthetic.

What’s with the resurgence of patriotism in pop culture? Maybe everyone is finally getting tired of the “I Hate America” shtick. Maybe the upcoming election is making everyone reevaluate where their identities lie as Americans. Whatever it is, it’s a breath of fresh air. 

It’s doubtful that Beyoncé or Lana del Rey would identify as part of the “MAGA hordes,” as Vogue calls it, yet they’re unafraid to be pro-America and pro-flag anyway. And this is how it should be! Being proud to be American should never be controversial inside American borders.

Closing Thoughts

It’s no wonder Americans struggle to have civil conversations with people on the other side – we can’t even agree about whether it’s morally permissible to appreciate the country you live in. Our political climate is so divided because we’ve lost sight of what was once a ubiquitous goal: to watch the country flourish, even if we disagree on how to make that happen. Wherever our politics lie, patriotism should never be a partisan issue, and the flag should never be a partisan symbol. 

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