I’m a lifelong fan of our American flag. As a child, I remember browsing the pages of magazines like American Heritage and being thrilled by the Stars and Stripes as they flew in so many stirring images of our fighting forces both here and abroad—who could forget that iconic photograph of Iwo Jima? As a Boy Scout, I learned all the rules of flag etiquette. Even now, I cringe when I see people wearing gaudy “flag-wear”—I consider it an abuse of our colors.
I regularly place our own well-worn Stars and Stripes out in front of our home on national holidays, including Flag Day and Juneteenth, and especially on Independence Day. It’s a ritual that shows my admiration for our national story, for the progress our nation has made to form “a more perfect union” over 250 years. I readily concede the flaws that lurk within our national character—the racism, religious intolerance, violence, and the periodic flare-ups of anti-immigrant hysteria.
But I still love our flag, and more importantly, I respect what it stands for.
So last weekend, on the semiquincentennial of our nation’s founding, once again I set out our flag—but I had to pause for a moment. I was struggling against a strong undercurrent of hostility, of toxic extremism that threatens to engulf our hard-won tradition of democracy and the rule of law.
The national mood is somber and brooding, when we should be celebrating 250 years since our founders declared that “all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.”
Sadly, what happened last weekend on the national stage was not even close to a shared celebration of our 250th anniversary. Instead, President Trump forced upon the nation an entirely partisan party that failed to deliver the unifying, inspiring celebration that Americans deserved.
Donald Trump is constantly and carelessly tarring all Democrats with the “communist” label—especially that vigorous new wing of the party that calls for a mild form of democratic socialism.
So it was no surprise when Trump reverted to that theme for the July 4 weekend. On Friday, Trump flew to Mount Rushmore where he used the word communism no fewer than 14 times. Against the backdrop of that magnificent monument to four truly great presidents, Trump complained that “The Communist Party is made up of illegal immigrants, criminals, and everybody that doesn’t want to work.”
Somehow, Trump fully expects to have his own face carved into that mountain, joining those four iconic faces of our very best presidents.
Then on Saturday, on the National Mall nearly all of Trump’s planned Independence Day events were canceled as a fierce thunderstorm lingered long enough to force a two-hour delay for the president’s own speech. Trump overruled his Secret Service and squeezed in a 40-minute diatribe where he again raged about the evil influence of communism as “a cancer” that needs to be “cut out fast.”
I deplore the way Trump hijacked Independence Day to plant suspicion about a communist “fifth column” within the Democratic Party. It takes only a whisper from Trump to stir up his usual MAGA crowd to violence, and his bully pulpit is constantly turned up to 10.
I’m sure some readers of this column will clutch their pearls and shout “what about Tom Fulks?” They will complain that recent remarks by the chair of our local Democratic Party stepped over the line by calling on our Party “to eradicate MAGA from every corner of our democracy.”
Neither Tom nor any other Democratic leader in this county has, to my knowledge, ever advocated violence against Republicans—or anyone else. To the contrary, we call upon our friends in the GOP to join us in eradicating the extremist MAGA ideology that has infested their party.
We must work to extinguish the blatant racism, antisemitism, and anti-immigrant rhetoric that is poisoning our political dialogue. We should not tolerate the constant drumbeat of threats that imply Democrats are merely a front for a “communist cancer.” There are more than a few MAGA storm troopers who take this language literally; they will stop at nothing to turn back the Declaration’s promise of equality and unalienable rights for all.
Democrats and Republicans should join together to condemn the use of violent invective to pump up extremists on either side—especially when it comes from the president. All of us should take careful note of the findings in a recent PBS News/NPR/Marist poll that almost a third of all Americans believe that violence may be needed to get the nation back on track—31 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of Democrats.
Thankfully, the majority of us still believe that no violence is acceptable in our American democracy. We must sustain our traditions that have endured and improved for 250 years—traditions that are embodied in landmarks like Mount Rushmore and the National Mall, and in monuments that honor our truly great leaders.
And I will continue to post my flag on our house whenever a national holiday comes around. ∆
John Ashbaugh threw out his American flag tie long ago. Respond with an opinion piece of your own by emailing it to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in July 9-16, 2026.
John Ashbaugh’s liberal pearl clutching again, folks. He, in the general financial cocoon his generation acquired through no other reason than chance, being the sons and daughters of the victors of WWII, chastises those of us who want to not only end mass, illegal immigration and close the border, but throw every illegal alien in the US out. At his age and tax bracket, he will never have to compete with hordes of illegal aliens jacking the price of rent up or lowering the wages of everyone in the building trades. He is perfectly insulated and shows why only grey haired relics like him have the gall to stand on freeway overpasses waving lame signs imploring illegal immigration and signal what they consider their own personal virtue. At the end of these spectacles, these well-off octogenarians usually hop into their BMW’s or Teslas and retreat to their $1.5 million dollar beach bungalows, crack open a $100 bottle of wine and go straight to CNN or MSNBC and mainline their daily dose of liberal terror.
Mr. Ashbaugh has engaged in a semantic slight of hand when he argued that Fulk’s call to “eradicate MAGA”was not a call for violence against Republicans, but merely against MAGA ideology. Any observer of the current bitter political scene knows that rabid partisans like Fulk refer to all Republicans and, indeed, anyone who declines to support whatever warm body that the Democrats choose to run, as “MAGA”. Fulk’s meaning is clear.
John D:
Agreed. I left the Democratic party not because of some with Trump crush on Trump, but rather, was forced out because my desire not to bomb Russia was at odds with both Biden and Democratic party apparatchiks. When the candidate from the opposing party states that he would end the war in “24 hours,” what other choice do peace loving people like me have? I don’t own a tv, so I had never even heard of Trump. He is as beholden to the same military industrial complex as Biden was, unfortunately, and has made peace even farther out of reach. Our political system is completely broken and beholden to private interests.
I agree, what Fulk said was just him playing footsie with the concept of doing what good liberals always want to do, kill people for their own good or, as people from his generation would say, “burn a village to save a village.”