I'M SO OLD I REMEMBER WHEN PROTESTS USING AMERICAN SYMBOLS WERE DECLARED PATRIOTIC

The Philadelphia Eagles are no longer welcome at the White House, and the president blames kneeling players:

President Trump on Monday abruptly rescinded an invitation to host the Eagles at the White House, citing the “smaller delegation” that was planning to attend and again stoking a national debate by insisting that players “proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart.”

“The Philadelphia Eagles are unable to come to the White House with their full team to be celebrated tomorrow,” Trump said in a statement released late Monday. “They disagree with their President because he insists that they proudly stand for the National Anthem, hand on heart, in honor of the great men and women of our military and the people of our country....”

The Eagles were scheduled to be honored by Trump at 3 p.m. on the South Lawn. Fewer than 10 players planned to attend....

In fact...

No player on last year’s Eagles team took a knee during the national anthem during the regular season and playoffs. [Malcolm] Jenkins raised a fist for part of the season to draw attention to social injustices, and particularly the way minorities are treated by law enforcement.

This might be a good time to recall that disrespect for patriotic symbols was actually regarded as a form of patriotism on the right until ... oh, Inauguration Day 2017. Let's look back.

July 2009:

Tea Party Patriots raise flags upside down in Syracuse

About 200 people rallied outside the federal building in Syracuse Saturday to protest big government, high taxes, bailouts, the cap-and-trade energy bill, President Barack Obama's plan to expand government health care programs and more....

They wore stars and stripes and some carried upside down American flags, a sign of distress, not disrespect, they said.

December 2012:

Jim Harris expected vandalism, angry calls, maybe even a violent attack.

Outside his old farmhouse, he had erected an upside-down American flag, a military signal of dire distress, and scrawled two big signs deploring President Obama’s re-election: “No Hope” and “Enslaved by the 47 Percent.”

He figured the display would incite some passers-by on his country road here in the cornfields of DeKalb County. This is scarcely a liberal bastion, but the county, which lies some 70 miles northwest of Chicago, cast a majority of votes for the fellow Illinoisan in the White House.

“I seriously feel this country is in dire distress,” said Mr. Harris, 55, an Air Force veteran who earns more than $40 an hour as a nonunion construction worker. “I can no longer trust the American people to do the right thing since they re-elected Obama.”

January 2013:

A Western Pennsylvania conservative group hung an American flag upside down on Monday in protest of President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, and despite backlash, they don’t regret it, WPXI Pittsburgh reported.

Upside down flags are traditionally used as distress signals by soldiers, and the group’s leader, Brent Kovac, said they had no qualms about hanging the flag in that way to signal, as he told WPXI, that “our nation is in a horrible place.”

January 2013:



June 2013:

As a former air force officer, patriotic Larry Taylor wouldn't normally fly the U.S. flag upside down.

But the Oregon resident is so furious at the Obama presidency, he has hung the Old Glory above his home with the stripes on top and stars at the bottom - the traditional signal of distress....

'We have a fraud in the White House that is a communist Muslim,' Taylor said.

'I think that constitutes a nation in distress.'

Granted, these people weren't famous. But no politician singled them out for demonization. There weren't wall-to-wall stories about them in any media outlets. None, as far as I know, lost their jobs. How is that even possible, when kneeling during the national anthem is an existential threat to America now?