US Flags in Anti-Trump Protests
Analysis 2.July.2025 by Claire Haas
Key information Sources: No Kings Toolkit for Hosts, No Kings Protest website, NYT coverage of protests, The Guardian’s coverage on protest size and other links through the text. Academic articles cited using APA and listed in the Bibliography to follow.
Key information Sources: No Kings Toolkit for Hosts, No Kings Protest website, NYT coverage of protests, The Guardian’s coverage on protest size and other links through the text. Academic articles cited using APA and listed in the Bibliography to follow.
“Bring the American flag! It’s no coincidence that No Kings Day falls on Flag Day. It’s past time we remind this nation, and the world, of the true definition of America: A nation that accepts your tired, your poor, your huddled masses and ensures they have the right to every freedom guaranteed to the person standing next to them. Bring out your American flags, encourage your attendees to do the same, let’s reclaim this symbol and remind the world that the freedom we stand for is freedom for all.” (NO KINGS Toolkit for Hosts)
On 14 June 2025, between 4-6 millions of people marched in 820 US cities and towns, holding protests on the day President Trump’s military parade on his birthday and the 250th anniversary of the US Army. The protest organizers called for protestors to remember that the US army’s founding was, in fact, the revolutionaries call to resist the monarchy and their lack of representation in the colonial government, tying Flag day and the symbol of the US flag to the fight for democracy, a message relevant with today’s eroding democracy. The protests are possibly the largest 1-day mobilization in the country’s history.
Photos of events across the country show the abundance of US flags participants flew in their protest. Some (but not all) flew the flag upside down, which traditionally is a sign of distress from maritime tradition and has often been used to show dissent with the US establishment from all political perspectives bow. Recently, right wing discourse has centered how pro-immigrant marches have featured flags of immigrants home countries, calling it a symbol of “invasion”. It may be that this call for the use of the US flag is in response to those calls.
Increasingly, the US flag has been seen more as a symbol of the Right than a symbol of the nation. For me, that transition happened in the fall of 2001, when in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks, flags were hung on literally every doorstep in my Midwestern neighborhood. While first a sign of unity in the face of a tragedy, they quickly became a symbol of support of the war effort. I asked my dad, who had been a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war, why my family didn’t take our flag down given we were not for the war. His response was that Republicans didn’t own the symbol, and that by hanging the flag, we were asserting peace could be patriotic, too. I disagreed with him – and have continued to see the US flag waved to support causes I oppose.
The presence of so many US flags strikes as a stunningly different visual identity for progressive protest. How does this symbol and identity impact the progressive base and the more centrist constituency they seek to engage with? Research has shown that the US flag can invoke Democrats and Republicans to further polarize based in their vision of what being American means (Chan, 2017); is this use of the US flag furthering of polarization or seeking unity?
Photos of events across the country show the abundance of US flags participants flew in their protest. Some (but not all) flew the flag upside down, which traditionally is a sign of distress from maritime tradition and has often been used to show dissent with the US establishment from all political perspectives bow. Recently, right wing discourse has centered how pro-immigrant marches have featured flags of immigrants home countries, calling it a symbol of “invasion”. It may be that this call for the use of the US flag is in response to those calls.
Increasingly, the US flag has been seen more as a symbol of the Right than a symbol of the nation. For me, that transition happened in the fall of 2001, when in the days and weeks after the 9/11 attacks, flags were hung on literally every doorstep in my Midwestern neighborhood. While first a sign of unity in the face of a tragedy, they quickly became a symbol of support of the war effort. I asked my dad, who had been a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war, why my family didn’t take our flag down given we were not for the war. His response was that Republicans didn’t own the symbol, and that by hanging the flag, we were asserting peace could be patriotic, too. I disagreed with him – and have continued to see the US flag waved to support causes I oppose.
The presence of so many US flags strikes as a stunningly different visual identity for progressive protest. How does this symbol and identity impact the progressive base and the more centrist constituency they seek to engage with? Research has shown that the US flag can invoke Democrats and Republicans to further polarize based in their vision of what being American means (Chan, 2017); is this use of the US flag furthering of polarization or seeking unity?
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Values Represented:
“People Power” Universalist and Benevolent values such as equality, social justice, and freedom are the core of this signal, but layered on top are “Tough Cookies” values around Tradition, Conformity, and even Security, such as respect for tradition, honoring elders (in this case, the revolutionary soldiers), and even upholding social order (of the non-fascist kind). |
Core Constituencies:
The activist call for this action, and who showed up, was wide reaching and follows the audiences reflected in the values represented in this signal. Core left activists were assumed as leaders and participants in this action, but with the caveat of an appeal into the more socially conservative groups represented by the “Tough Cookies” – which might include union members in smaller cities, church ladies, and others who might value equality but not see themselves in the mold of traditional activism. The flag represents a symbol that these constituencies might already hold layers of (positive) meanings for, and thus be able to more easily see themselves as part of the constituency of this action. |
Strategic Insights:
While the Right has invested heavily in symbols such as flags and clothing, the US Left has many fewer examples of such symbols (the 2017 Women’s march Pussy hats and the kaffiyahs to support Palestine being the only examples that come to mind). What is the impact of investing in a resignification of a symbol rather than the creation of a new symbol?
While the Right has invested heavily in symbols such as flags and clothing, the US Left has many fewer examples of such symbols (the 2017 Women’s march Pussy hats and the kaffiyahs to support Palestine being the only examples that come to mind). What is the impact of investing in a resignification of a symbol rather than the creation of a new symbol?
Articulation with Current Trends: This signal falls in the domain of the currently identified Macrotrends Anchored Narratives and Protagonist Identities from the 2025 Trends and Cultural Management Lab Report. It also links to the This Is Signals 2024 Narrative “War Games,” particularly in how it relates to the Trump military parade and its signaling of US Imperialism.
Bibliography:
Chan, E. Y. (2017). Exposure to the American flag polarizes democratic‐republican ideologies. British Journal of Social Psychology, 56(4), 809–818. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12197
Chan, E. Y. (2017). Exposure to the American flag polarizes democratic‐republican ideologies. British Journal of Social Psychology, 56(4), 809–818. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12197
Movement Signals © 2025 by Claire Haas is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International
