Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
My father enlisted in the Navy and served in the Naval Construction Battalion, as a Navy Seabee in the South Pacific in World War II. I enlisted in the Army, graduated from OCS, and served, though not in combat, as a tank battalion staff officer during the Viet Nam War. Our son retired as lieutenant colonel in the Army Judge Advocate General Corp after 23 years’ service, which included two war-time deployments in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.
Like the hundreds of thousand men and women before us, we all served under, and countless times pledged our allegiance to, the Flag of the United States of America. The Stars and Stripes. Old Glory.
For years I proudly flew our Flag from my home.
No longer will I do so.
I choose not to disgrace this iconic and sacred symbol of America; I choose not to dishonor our Flag, all those who fought under and, many dying for it, and all that it represents. I will not fly it over a Country that is no longer the Democratic Republic conceived in liberty in 1776–a Nation that ceased being the world’s oldest democracy in 2020; the year it finally backslid into anocracy: the state between democracy and authoritarianism.
And, only four years after that, America completed its race to the bottom, into that fatal abyss of authoritarianism.
In 2024 America elected to the Presidency the most mentally deranged, self-centered, incompetent, toxic, venal, draft-dodging, and corrupt insurrectionist ever to serve in that office.America elected to the highest and most powerful public office on earth, a man with the emotional maturity of a spoiled two-year old; a self-proclaimed dictator, one who quotes Hitler favorably; a person who numbers among his wannabee heroes, the world’s most ruthless tyrants, including Vladmir Putin, Kim Jong Un and Viktor Orbán, to name a few; a man who refers to our wounded and dead veterans as “suckers” and “losers;” a man who defiled Arlington Cemetery for a photo-op..
America is now a fascist state with Donald J. Trump as its leader.
To fly the Flag of our former America over Trump’s authoritarian regime would be to defile that sacred symbol; it would discredit the founders’ carefully constructed Constitutional government, which Trump has resolved to tear down; it would dishonor the sacrifice, the battles fought and won, and the life blood of the hundreds of thousands of military service members and the millions of ordinary citizens who have fought for 245 years to preserve our democracy.
I choose not to fly the Flag of the United States of America in a County run by a traitor in league with his party of fascist lickspittles and sycophants.
I will fly my Flag again, but only when America throws off the yoke of authoritarian tyranny; when it consigns Trump along with the people and the party which enables him to the septic-tank of history, where all autocrats languish in humiliation and ignominy.
Against every fascist regime from Mussolini to the present there has been a resistance movement fighting the imposition of tyranny and authoritarianism. There will be one against Trump and his “unified Reich,” too. Count on it.
For my part, I will continue to support, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of my State against all enemies foreign and domestic. I will continue to honor and preserve our Flag by choosing not to fly it until Americans redeem America from the evils of fascism that Trump has and will impose upon our Country.
Until that happens, I will fly my Flag no longer.