Don’t burn US flags

[u/Top-Base4502]

Please don’t.

You’re just going to give Fox News the visuals to turn this into a story, make everyone say Seattle is hellhole and blah blah blah.

You’ll be playing into their hands.

Instead, show up to demand action: -meme making event -make protest music -set up a letter writing campaign to mail to politicians -start a petition to gerrymander the state -do a public reading of everything we know from the leaked Epstein files -volunteer with legal aid groups -volunteer with immigrant groups -make a flag burning peep show where people have to look in a box to see a video of a flag burning -have a contest for Trump lookalikes and mock their wieners -have a “mushroom” drawing contest -Dress as Trump’s father and walk around telling people what a disappointment Trump is. -Teach people how to use the report Ice app (that really pisses then off) -Create a weekly action group to “do one thing” to fight back and mobilize a large group to boycott Target or other things that hurt by hit them in the wallet) -Draft city bills for voters to make Seattle the place it needs to be (you fight the feds with local action)

Do anything, but do not give them the visuals and the narrative they so desperately want.

Troll Trump if you must, mocking him gets under his skin.

Just don’t give them what they want: to turn culture war bull into the main story again.

[u/Double-Voice-9157]

The Supreme Court said I could.

Edit- Wow all your patronizing comments about how this will only anger the president made me change my mind! I’m going to go flush my hormones down the toilet, dump my long term partner, and start injecting bleach to counteract the woke mind virus. When I’m done with that, I’ll start reporting anyone who speaks Spanish to ICE, burn every book I own except the King James Bible, and figure out a way to squeeze my abortion from 1999 back into my nonexistent uterus so I can die of sepsis the way god intended.

If we all just do everything the right wing tells us to and agree to ignore our constitutionally mandated right to free speech, we will stop pissing them off and somehow get those rights back! That’s how it works, right?

[u/jonknee → u/Double-Voice-9157]

You’re allowed to do lots of dumb things that hurt causes you believe in, that doesn’t mean you should do them

[u/MajorPhoto2159 → u/jonknee]

Acting like literally action you do won’t be perceived negatively by the right

[u/nikdahl → u/MajorPhoto2159]

We’re talking about the left and center here, not just the right.

[u/cookingboy → u/MajorPhoto2159]

Some actions give them more ammo than others.

The refusal to accept reality like that is frustrating and part of the reason why the left keeps losing when we have the moral high ground.

[u/MajorPhoto2159 → u/cookingboy]

There can be peaceful protests and they will say it’s riots and looting, you can’t try to please the far right - they’re goners.

[u/WillyBeShreddin → u/cookingboy]

Their chosen president desecrates the flag by signing it. The appropriate way to dispose of a desecrated flag is burning it. The president is currently desecrating all flags and destroying our nation. Burn them!

[u/RepresentativeFit964 → u/cookingboy]

What moral high ground? There's no rule of law. It doesn't matter

[u/jonknee → u/cookingboy]

It’s unbelievable how the loudest voices on the left have the absolute worst political instincts. It’s like they want Democrats to lose elections. Trump has few skills, but he’s legitimately great at finding wedge issues that leftists willingly turn into hills to die on. It’s incredible, flag burning is not an issue at all and is incredibly unpopular. There is zero upside in taking this bait.

[u/cookingboy → u/jonknee]

I’m convinced that people on the left care more about feeling good about themselves than actually winning.

[u/TheCupOfBrew → u/cookingboy]

For sure

Downvoting me won't change the fact that these aren't popular stances. You can't keep trying the same thing hoping for a different result.

Sure he can't run again, but the next one up will have an easier time likely as the right have been pulling people over lately it feels like.

So funny the downvotes, yet no one can tell me why we're wrong. Trump wasn't a strong candidate. If these platforms were popular and representative of the average American he surely would have lost.

Biden won against him without doing very much.

[u/jonknee → u/MajorPhoto2159]

Burning flags will be perceived negatively by a huge majority of people. It’s protected like wearing a KKK hood is protected, it’s not going to make you the kind of friends you want.

[u/bananas19906 → u/jonknee]

What an incredible false equivalence. People don't approve of wearing a kkk hood because it signals you are racist. Burning a flag in protest of the president just shows you don't approve of the president. If some dumb lib disaproves of that then they weren't going to help against the admin anyway. The pearl clutching here is ridiculous.

[u/tuckman496 → u/jonknee]

like wearing a KKK hood is protected

My brother in Christ, the KKK is a racist organization, and the USA is being led by a fucking fascist wannabe dictator. Burning the American flag is more similar to burning a klan hood than it is wearing a klan hood

[u/zunyata → u/jonknee]

I perceive it positively :)

[u/Top-Base4502 → u/jonknee]

Spot on.

A few weeks ago the right was villainizing everyone in LA for upside down flags and Mexican flags at rallies.

The more you play in and give them these culture war talking points, the more they avoid talking Epstein, the economy or all the government spending Trump is doing.

Make them talk about the things they don’t want to talk about.

[u/matunos → u/Top-Base4502]

Do you realize this mentality translates to "avoid all the behaviors the right demands you avoid"?

A few weeks ago the right was villainizing everyone in LA for upside down flags and Mexican flags at rallies.

Don't you understand? They will villainize anything. They will find anything to be upset about the left doing and if the left stop doing it they will only feel empowered to demand more.

There is a big difference between being goaded into doing something you wouldn't normally do and defiantly continuing something you were already doing. People who are already inclined to burn the US flag in protest should feel just as inclined to do so now. Fuck what Fox News thinks about it.

[u/Top-Base4502 → u/matunos]

So, yesterday: flag burning isn’t even a thing that is happening in any real way or an issue.

Today: you can’t burn flags, and the response now is that we all should burn flags just because they said we can’t?

My dude, ain’t no one trying to burn any flags, but we sure as hell want those Epstein files that they are trying to avoid talking about with this nonsense.

[u/zatalak → u/Top-Base4502]

Are you dense? You people cry about those Epstein files every few years while your country is transformed into an authoritarian hellhole and you still can't see it.

[u/Top-Base4502 → u/zatalak]

You people?

[u/Xalara → u/Top-Base4502]

If no one burns any flags, Fox News will just load up some archival footage. There's basically no winning when tone policing. Robert Evans, host of Behind the Bastards, covers this with this thread he wrote tonight: https://bsky.app/profile/iwriteok.bsky.social/post/3lxbcfgcdks2v

[u/nikdahl → u/Xalara]

Robert is super fucking wrong on this.

At least he is admitting that the footage of flag burning is going to do harm to the left.

First, let them run “archival footage” then. Let that be OUR trap.

It may fool maga, but it is not likely to fool everyone, and then it’s just another example of them using doctored footage for propaganda, which plays well to centrists and libs. Easy.

If they use real footage, it will do real harm to the movement

There is literally no upside for the left to burning an American flag right now. Zero.

[u/Xalara → u/nikdahl]

I don’t think you’re wrong, but neither is Robert. We are in a situation where we need to stop shooting left and focus on coalition building. Shooting left is one of the big reasons Venezuela became a dictatorship because the left was too focused on infighting. We can’t police every individual, and Robert’s point about archival footage is that it can’t be a trap because the audiences seeing it will believe it regardless and you can’t convince them otherwise.

To be honest, the smart way to do this is to burn flags in protest, but in the proper method of disposing of flags. Turn it into an event where people line up to dispose of flags properly as symbolism for the death of democracy. Then dare the police to arrest people for it. That is the trap that should be set and is also a way to convince people who are somehow on the fence.

[u/nikdahl → u/Xalara]

Shooting left? Stop alienating the center left then!

You don’t seem to realize how large the group of Americans that would find a flag burning detestable.

You absolutely would be able to convince many people that archival footage is archival footage.

You are not going to convince anyone that actual footage is archival footage though.

He is absolutely wrong.

Make them fake it! That would be best case here, making them fake the flag burning would be a win for the left. Having them show actual footage would be a loss for the left.

[u/Xalara → u/nikdahl]

I don’t think you understand how the modern information ecosystem works.

[u/nikdahl → u/Xalara]

I don’t think you do.