Red, White and Blue. With an Asterisk

 ("The American Flag Belongs to Me, Too, and This Year I'm Taking It Back")

Margaret Renkl did not raise the red, white and blue alone but with an asterisk. For on its own, this flag is now far too often a declaration of hatreds and prejudices, of exclusions and divisions. A statement not of what we are but what we are not.

The Republican party is one of messaging through symbols and slogans. Where is the Democratic equivalent of "Let's Go Brandon", or "Trump 2024"? Republicans wear their politics on their shirts, display them on their lawns and wave them in the faces of those they so vehemently and vociferously oppose. And they have captured July 4th and the flag as their own, not as a matter of pride but provocation.

So Ms. Renkl now flies a rainbow of colors to provide necessary clarification of her intentions, counterpoint to the visceral response and inevitable conclusions of seeing the red, white and blue flapping alone in the wind.

This was not how it was meant to be. But merely exactly how it is in the divided state of America.