President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday directing the Justice Department to vigorously prosecute anyone who burns an American flag. The order isn’t just typical of Trump’s decades-long hostility to constitutionally protected speech that triggers his delicate sensibilities. It’s emblematic of a particular style of performative patriotism that long pre-dates Trump — and which he has completely normalized and empowered.
This exclusionary and elitist patriotism seeks to elevate “real Americans” from the rest of the general population, as defined by things like blind jingoism, the fetishization of military violence and the thought-policing of allegedly “disloyal” Americans. Self-anointed real Americans like Trump allow themselves — and only themselves — the grace to regularly express disgust with modern-day America (that’s ostensibly the reason they want to make it “great again”). Yet they are also deeply insecure about their faith in America’s greatness.
Trump’s executive order on flag burning pays lip service to the constitutionally proscribed limits of his power.
That’s why the Trump administration is resurrecting monuments to Confederate traitors and using the force of government to attack schools and museums for addressing what Republicans have in recent years called “divisive concepts.” Among these forbidden topics is the idea that American chattel slavery was a crime against humanity, as was Jim Crow segregation, and we should make sure future generations know about it — for a whole bunch of reasons.
Trump’s executive order on flag burning pays lip service to the constitutionally proscribed limits of his power, but also lays out a plot to convince the courts that the First Amendment has a “Trump’s feels” exception: “To the maximum extent permitted by the Constitution, the Attorney General shall vigorously prosecute those who violate our laws in ways that involve desecrating the American Flag, and may pursue litigation to clarify the scope of the First Amendment exceptions in this area.”
A handful of conservatives decried the order, with several saying that while they abhor flag-burning, it’s undoubtedly constitutionally protected speech. But they represent a dwindling minority among the larger MAGA movement, which is quite openly done with pretending they still want America to be a Republic.
During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump delivered a line that ought to be prominently featured in future summations of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ legacy: “I have the right to do anything I want to do. I’m the president of the United States.”
The president also said: “The line is that I’m a dictator, but I stop crime. So a lot of people say, ‘You know, if that’s the case, I’d rather have a dictator.’”
Tragically, he’s not wrong about that last part. They may not use the word “dictatorship” — but a large portion of MAGA is simply done with America’s two-and-a-half-century experiment with “liberal democracy.”
The future of our rights is still up in the air, as the courts try to keep up with Trump’s authoritarian stampede. Reactionary blogger Curtis Yarvin’s claim to fame is providing an intellectual foundation for American monarchism, and he is influential with some members of the Trump administration and the Trump campaign-financing, Silicon Valley tech billionaire elite. The pro-Trump national conservative movement — which is having its big annual conference in Washington, D.C., next week — believes that libertarian views on economics and individual rights should be rejected in favor of an identity-based nationalism. As my colleague Ja’han Jones noted, several Trump administration officials and allies spoke at a prominent Christian nationalist conference in June, where House Speaker Mike Johnson indicated he believed God’s divine intervention brought Trump back to power. The president and his movement’s performative patriotism is defined by fealty to authority and idol worship of America-branded totems, like flags and statues. The things that truly make America great, like the Constitution — with its limits on executive power and broadly written rights to protect the citizenry’s liberty from an overbearing monarch — are seen as obstacles to Trump’s divinely inspired crusade to remake America into a country where dissent is crushed and checks on executive power no longer exist. Axios’ Mike Allen aptly summarized the second Trump administration to date on Wednesday: “In just seven months, Trump has consolidated vast power by following a clear playbook: Capture what he can, contest what he can’t and punish those who resist.” Under the Constitution, the right to dissent, the right to worship (or not) and the right to express speech that some may perceive as offensive — like flag-burning or candid, fact-based discussions of some of the less-proud moments of American history — all take precedence over the snowflake-sensitive feelings of a performative patriot like Trump. Or at least, they used to. The future of our rights is still up in the air, as the courts try to keep up with Trump’s authoritarian stampede. Trump can fondle all the American flags he desires and prosecute the rare protester who burns one — but his gleeful use of state power to suppress “dangerous” knowledge and ideas is what’s truly un-American.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for MS NOW. 
