Trump vs. the Flag: Free Speech for Me, Not for Thee

Today, Trump signed an executive order demanding one year in jail for burning the American flag. He sat there with his pen, smug, pretending he could undo three decades of Supreme Court precedent with a single flourish.

Here’s the reality: he can’t.

The Supreme Court already ruled in Texas v. Johnson (1989) and again in United States v. Eichman (1990) that burning the American flag is protected speech under the First Amendment. Those cases didn’t carve out exceptions. They didn’t say “unless the president is mad.” They said flatly: symbolic expression — even when offensive — is speech.

So what Trump did today is less about law and more about intimidation. He wants people to be afraid of protest. He wants to make flag-burning seem like a crime when in fact it’s a form of dissent the Constitution explicitly shields.

The Hypocrisy

Here’s the part I can’t let go.

Trump himself has done whatever he wants with the American flag. He’s draped it around himself at rallies like a prop. He’s printed his ugly face across it like a dictator’s banner. He even used the image of the flag for drainage holes in the Rose Garden he paved over — what used to be the Rose Garden.

All of that is grotesque. All of that is an insult to the symbol. And yet it’s his right. Because the First Amendment doesn’t belong to the right or the left. It belongs to all of us.

If Trump takes away the right to burn the American flag, then by the exact same logic we take away his right to debase it in every self-serving way he pleases. He doesn’t get to monopolize patriotism and twist it into his own branding exercise.

Why It Matters

The point is bigger than Trump. Free speech rights are either universal or they’re dead. You can’t pick and choose whose expression gets punished because you don’t like it. That’s what authoritarian regimes do.

Flag burning isn’t about hating America. It’s about calling America to live up to its promises. And if we lose the right to protest with that symbol, we lose one more check against the abuse of power — the very thing Trump is banking on.

Bottom line: This is another Trump stunt — a power grab dressed up in patriotism. Don’t fall for it. The law hasn’t changed. The First Amendment still protects dissent. And if we let him shred that, we’re handing him the scissors to cut up the rest of our freedoms too.

What do you think — does Trump’s grotesque use of the flag prove the point better than any protest could?