In Episode 86 of The Way of Improvement Leads Home podcast Current editor Eric Miller talks about walking in his Western Pennsylvania neighborhood and his wife saying, “Remember when the American flag was just up there by itself and didn’t have the name of your candidate underneath it?”
Over at The New York Times, Sarah Maslin Nir has a fascinating piece of reporting on how the American flag has become a symbol of disunity in the United States. Here is a taste:
SOUTHOLD, N.Y. — The American flag flies in paint on the side of Peter Treiber Jr.’s potato truck, a local landmark parked permanently on County Route 48, doing little more, he thought, than drawing attention to his family’s farm.
Until he tried to sell his produce.
At a local greenmarket where he sells things like wild bergamot, honey and sunflowers, he had trouble striking a deal until, he said, he let his liberal leanings slip out in conversation with a customer.
“She said, ‘Oh, whew. You know, I wasn’t so sure about you, I thought you were some flag-waving something-or-other,’” Mr. Treiber, 32, recalled the woman saying and citing his potato truck display. “That’s why she was apprehensive of interacting with me.”
He paused: “It was a little sad to me. It shows the dichotomy of the country that a flag can mean that. That I had to think, ‘Do I need to reconsider having that out there?’”
Read the rest here.
