Does it still fly...?
It has ever been the question, and is pointedly so now.
Some may hear this as a question about the flag: is it still flying?
But it is more importantly a question about us, about this nation. Is this land still a home to the free and the courageous? Is this the land where all are equal under the law, where we believe that everyone deserves basic decency, and which is still seeking a more perfect union?
The cult of Trump/MAGA, the insurrectionists and those proclaiming retribution, have a very bleak view of our present, and an awful vision for our future. They know how to tear down, but not how to build up.
On the last day of the Constitutional Convention, September 18, 1787, Elizabeth Powell asked Benjamin Franklin, "Have we got a republic or a monarchy?"
"A republic, if you can keep it."
The song's first stanza is also a question: "Can you see..."? Can you see what was flying before, but has recently been obscured? Is it still there? Does it still fly?
I think we have all seen people wrap themselves in the flag, even literally, while disrespecting the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
*
The Fourth of July is not really about the fireworks, nor even the flag. It's about that promise the founders saw, however imperfectly, that the people of this nation can govern ourselves less by force and privilege than by reason and comity, recognition and considerate behavior toward others.
If we are going to keep our republic, and the freedoms which our republic has enabled, we are going to have to show the bravery that freedom requires.
* Traditionally, those entitled to be wrapped in the flag are those honored dead who earned their flag-draped coffin by their service to our nation.
Bloomberg Quicktake. (2019). Trump Hugs American Flag at CPAC.
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