Earlier this week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would make it a criminal offense to burn the American flag, despite the fact that, in 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that burning the flag was protected speech under the First Amendment of that Constitution thingy MAGA Republicans pretend to care about so much.
Now, as NewsOne previously reported, the White House also acknowledged the SCOTUS ruling on its website, but went on to claim the ruling didn’t include instances in which the act of burning the flag could incite violence.
“Notwithstanding the Supreme Court’s rulings on First Amendment protections, the Court has never held that American Flag desecration conducted in a manner that is likely to incite imminent lawless action or that is an action amounting to ‘fighting words’ is constitutionally protected. See Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397, 408-10 (1989),” White House officials wrote.
But Democratic leaders are pointing out another glaring issue with Trump’s latest authoritarian order: even if it is only enforced in cases where the flag is burned to incite violence, this EO is coming from the same president who pardoned more than 1,500 Jan. 6 rioters, who were absolutely motivated and incited by his own propaganda.
From NewsOne:
In 2020, President Donald Trump responded to losing his bid for a second term by claiming over and over again that the election had been rigged against him. For the entire month and a half between Nov. 20, 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, Trump shouted from every rooftop he could find that he won the election, and the Democrats stole it, despite dozens of judges across lower courts, appellate courts and the Supreme Court, every election official in states that Trump challenged, the former head of election cybersecurity, Trump’s own attorney general and the Department of Justice all saying unequivocally that it wasn’t true. This propaganda directly resulted in a riot at the U.S. Capitol.
“If Trump wants to throw the book at people who commit ‘violent crime’ while desecrating the American flag, why did he pardon people who on Jan. 6, 2021, violently assaulted our cops with American flags-on-poles, calling them heroes and rewarding their bloody flag desecration?” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) tweeted in response to Trump’s latest show of government overreach.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom — whose staff has spent the last couple of weeks getting under the skin of Trump, MAGA-fied Republicans and especially the fine folks at Fox News by mocking Trump’s ridiculous social media rants — also weighed in on the matter, tweeting, “Clearly, Donald Trump really cares about the American flag” along with a news story about Jan. 6 rioters tearing down a U.S. flag while trying to overthrow the government based on Trump’s “stop the steal” nonsense.
Unfortunately, Trump and his mindless followers have already shown they are as impervious to glaring hypocrisy as they are to critical thought — another thing this administration appears to be trying to make illegal.
What a sad, pathetic and, frankly, fascist way to run a country.
