CNN
—
Hanging the United States flag upside down, a gesture meant to signal distress and which sparked controversy from Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, is now practiced by Donald Trump supporters to protest the conviction of former president during his secret trial.
Prominent Trump supporters such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and former national security adviser Michael Flynn posted photos of toppled flags on social media shortly after a New York jury found Trump guilty on Thursday. Flynn, a retired three-star general, made this image his profile picture on X.
Pro-Trump social media accounts were flooded with images of inverted flags hanging from porches and lawns across the country on Friday. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, released an image appearing to show the flag hanging upside down above its headquarters in Washington, DC.
In California, dozens of American flags placed in front of a library in Monrovia, Los Angeles County, to commemorate Memorial Day were toppled overnight Thursday, local news channel KTLA reported.
It is not clear who is responsible for this stunt. “The City was very surprised to learn that someone had reversed the flags flown in honor of veterans in our community. We were able to reset them properly with the help of staff and community members,” Monrovia City Manager Dylan Feik told CNN on Saturday.
The practice of reversing the stars and stripes has come under new scrutiny after The New York Times revealed last month that an upside-down American flag was seen outside the home Alito in January 2021 – at a time when the practice was a symbol for Trump supporters who falsely claimed widespread fraud in the 2020 election. Justice Alito said his wife held up the symbol of discontent in response to a neighborhood conflict.
Respect for the flag is defined in the U.S. Code, which states: “The flag shall never be flown with the union lowered, except as a sign of extreme distress in cases of extreme danger to life or property.” »
Over the weekend, however, the trend seemed to intensify. Country music star Jason Aldean – no stranger to political controversy – posted an image of an inverted flag to his 4.4 million Instagram followers after the verdict on Thursday, writing: “Scary times in our country right now moment, man. When a former POTUS is treated like this by our justice system, what does that mean for the rest of us? As of Saturday, the post had nearly half a million likes.