Over at The Atlantic, Ali Breland gets us oriented. Here is a taste of “A Field Guide to the Flags of the Far Right“:
Americans love flying flags. Not just the Stars and Stripes—flags of their state, their city, their alma mater. Last year, three flags were flown outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s New Jersey vacation home: the flag of Long Beach Island, where he summers; a flag commemorating the Philadelphia Phillies’ 2022 National League championship; and the Appeal to Heaven flag, also known as the Pine Tree flag.
The last of these caught the attention of The New York Times. The Pine Tree flag, which dates to the Revolutionary War, has become a symbol of the far right. The Times had previously reported that an upside-down American flag had flown outside Alito’s Virginia home in January 2021—a gesture of protest that had been adopted by the pro–Donald Trump “Stop the Steal” movement.
Alito explained that his wife had inverted the flag to signal displeasure with some querulous neighbors, and that she had flown the Pine Tree flag without knowing about its “Stop the Steal” association. But the incidents raised concerns that the flags revealed political views that would color Alito’s judgment in cases before the Court.
Antique American flags, obscure foreign ones, and a host of newly designed banners are now common wherever elements of the far right congregate, whether in real life or online. An array of flags dotted the crowds outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6— symbolic weapons that sometimes turned into actual ones: Several rioters used flagpoles to assault police officers or destroy property. After the attempted assassination of Trump in July, some of his supporters circulated an image of a tangled American flag, in which they saw the outline of an angel—a sign that the former president had been the beneficiary of divine protection.
Understanding what these sometimes-recondite symbols mean can shed light on how extremist ideology is evolving. Below is a guide to some of the most prominent symbols.
Read the rest here.