Trump supporters turn US flags upside down to protest against guilty verdict
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Upside-down American flags emerged outside homes and on social media on May 31 in support of Donald Trump after his guilty verdict.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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WASHINGTON – Upside-down American flags emerged outside homes and on social media on May 31 in support of Donald Trump after a New York jury returned a historic guilty verdict against the former Republican president
Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and country music singer Jason Aldean were among the prominent Americans to display the inverted flag, a symbol of distress or protest in America for over 200 years.
The symbol, popular among some avid Trump supporters since his 2020 election defeat, exploded across pro-Trump social media accounts after he was convicted on May 30 of falsifying documents to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star to illegally influence the 2016 election.
Minutes after the verdict, Ms Greene, a Trump loyalist, posted an inverted US flag on her X account. By May 31 afternoon, more than eight million people had viewed it.
Mr Aldean posted an inverted flag on his Instagram account, saying: “Scary times in our country right now, man.” He added: “If there was ever a time to speak up, its now! Make no mistake. We are in trouble.”
Mr Don Tapia, a former Trump ambassador to Jamaica and a Republican donor, flew an inverted flag outside his Arizona home. He said he had received phone calls of support and that motorists had honked as they drove by. “Will switch back Sunday to regular flag,” he told Reuters by text message.
Mr Dan Bongino, a conservative radio talk show host who interviewed Trump on his show on May 29, posted an inverted US flag on his X account after the verdict. It had received 250,000 views by mid-afternoon on May 31.
A Miami chapter of the Proud Boys, a far-right militant group, posted an inverted flag on the message channel Telegram, as did a similar group called Patriot Voice, with the words: “In dire distress.”
On pro-Trump corners of the internet, some supporters called for riots, revolution and violent retribution.
The symbolic inverting of the flag drew nationwide attention when The New York Times reported in mid-May that an upside-down Stars and Stripes was flown outside the home of US Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in the weeks after the Jan 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol by Trump supporters rioting in protest at his 2020 election defeat.
Justice Alito, a conservative appointed to the court by Republican former President George W. Bush, told the Times he had “no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag”. He said his wife raised the inverted flag over a neighbourhood dispute.
Trump, the first former US president to be convicted of a crime, said on May 31 he will appeal against the verdict.
Staring down a bank of cameras inside Manhattan’s Trump Tower, the former president rattled off a list of adversaries and grievances in rambling remarks while vowing to keep on fighting.
An upside-down US flag was first used by sailors in the 1700s to signal distress, said presidential historian Timothy Naftali. It has since taken on a long history of political symbolism on the American left as well as the right.
It was used in the anti-slavery movement in the mid-1800s and was carried by anti-Vietnam War protesters in the 1960s, said Associate Professor Naftali of Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.
An upside-down US flag was first used by sailors in the 1700s to signal distress, said presidential historian Timothy Naftali.
PHOTO: REUTERS
He said it was ironic that when Vietnam War protesters inverted the flag or burned it, Republicans generally decried that.
“We live in an era now where the deepest and most virulent conspiracies about the nature of our Constitution are on the right. Inverting the flag is part of that,” he said.
An inverted US flag was flown by some people protesting against the murder of Mr George Floyd, a black man, by a white Minnesota police officer in 2020.
It was carried by people protesting against the US Supreme Court decision in 2022 to end the federal right to an abortion.
Trump and his Republican supporters have in recent years decried black football players taking a knee during the playing of the US national anthem, known as The Star-Spangled Banner, itself a reference to the flag. REUTERS
