America is turning 250 years old, and the birthday party looks a little different this year. People are flying the flag upside down, replacing it with state flags, or planning to put up protest signs next to it so the neighbors don't get the wrong idea. This is where we are.
The Flag Now Requires a Disclaimer
Bruce Watson has flown the American flag for years. He nudges his neighbors in his small New England town to do the same. He is, by any measure, a flag guy. But as NBC News reports, Watson is now wrestling with something he never expected to wrestle with: whether flying the Stars and Stripes makes him look like a MAGA supporter.
"If we do fly the flag, we will also put out signs to make it clear that we are not MAGA," Watson, 72, told NBC News. Read that sentence again. A 72-year-old man who has spent years encouraging his neighbors to display the American flag now feels he needs a footnote. A clarifying statement. Fine print on his patriotism.
This is the state of the country as it marks 250 years of existence. The symbol that is supposed to unite everyone has become so thoroughly colonized by one political movement that people who love their country feel they have to specify which America they mean when they fly its flag.
Upside Down and Inside Out
Rather than abandon the flag entirely, some Americans have found a middle path: flying it upside down, a traditional signal of national distress. Dina Bannick, 61, who lives outside Des Moines, Iowa, told NBC News she plans to do exactly that. "Donald Trump has turned everything upside down, so it makes sense our flag should be upside down," she said. "We used to be a proud nation. Now, our country is in distress."
Trump supporters are, predictably, furious about this. Dave Cavannah, a professional woodcarver from Monson, Massachusetts, who is currently chiseling a statue of Trump that sits partially finished on his front lawn, called it shameful. "What's shameful is that people who hate Trump are flying the flag upside down," he told NBC News.
Here's the thing though: Trump supporters flew the flag upside down after he lost in 2020. And NBC News points out that an upside-down flag was spotted outside the Virginia home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in January 2021, the same month that pro-Trump rioters stormed the Capitol. So the upside-down flag protest has been a bipartisan tradition for at least five years now. Everyone agrees the country is in distress. They just can't agree on who put it there.
The Airman Who Replaced It With Pennsylvania
Master Sgt. Frank Chappell of the Air National Guard took a different approach entirely. When he bought his home, he replaced the U.S. flag with the state flag of Pennsylvania. He told NBC News he did it because Trump's rhetoric and policies are "driving a wedge between Americans, dividing us even further." Chappell, who is assigned to the 171st Air Refueling Wing outside Pittsburgh and was careful to note he was speaking only for himself, said he'll fly the American flag again "once I believe that the states are more united in vision, tolerance and empathy toward our fellow Americans."
Chappell is a religious affairs airman who provides crisis counseling and spiritual care. He spends his days helping people find common ground and meaning in hard times. And even he has decided the American flag no longer reflects what he needs it to reflect. That's not a small thing. That's an active-duty service member looking at the flag of the country he serves and choosing the state flag instead.
Pride Flags, Eagles Flags, Patriots Banners
For others, the alternative isn't a state flag but something more personal. A Rhode Island teacher, who asked NBC News not to identify her to protect her family, said she's been flying a Pride flag and a New England Patriots banner since 2024. "I have a gay son and a trans son and felt that that flag was now a symbol flown by people who don't want my children to exist," she told NBC News.
Erin Beltle, 22, who lives outside Philadelphia, told NBC News her father will fly the American flag but that she and her mother would choose the Pride flag or the Eagles flag if it were up to them. "I love our country, but I'm not feeling very proud of our country right now," she said.
Then there's the woman from Newtown, Pennsylvania, who asked to remain anonymous and told NBC News she flies the flag mainly because her neighbors do. "I feel that if I don't have a flag displayed somewhere, people will think I'm against our country or something." Patriotism as neighborhood peer pressure. Fly the flag or face an unspoken social consequence. That sentence belongs in a political science textbook.
The Flagmakers Are Having a Great Year, At Least
Amid all this existential crisis, one group is doing just fine: the people who make the flags. Carter Beard, president of Annin Flagmakers, a sixth-generation New Jersey firm that has made flags for Abraham Lincoln's funeral and the Apollo moon landing, told NBC News that business is up around 20 percent this year. Government agencies, private businesses, and individuals are all ordering new banners to mark the semiquincentennial.
"This being the anniversary, we're definitely seeing a surge of patriotism with people wanting to fly the flag," Beard said. So the flag industry is thriving while the idea the flag represents fractures along every available fault line. A 20 percent bump in flag sales at the same time people are putting up disclaimer signs next to them. America: always finding a way to make the economics work.
The Dingo Take
Here is what's actually happening in this story. The American flag has not changed. It's the same red, white, and blue it has always been. What changed is that one political movement spent a decade aggressively branding itself with the flag until a significant portion of the country started to feel like they were being asked to choose between the symbol and their own values. And that movement didn't happen by accident. It was deliberate. Flags at rallies, flags on hats, flags on every piece of merchandise. The flag became a team jersey, and now everyone has to decide whose team they're on when they hang one.
Rebecca Dyer, a mother of five outside Salt Lake City, told NBC News she flies the flag no matter who is in the White House because "this is not about one party or one person." She is correct, in the way that ideals usually are correct. In practice, though, an Air National Guard sergeant replaced his American flag with a state flag. A Rhode Island teacher hasn't flown it since the 2024 election. A 72-year-old flag enthusiast is planning a protest sign to accompany it. These are not the actions of people who feel the flag belongs to all of them.
America turns 250 years old and the most honest thing you can say about the birthday is this: a lot of people who love this country deeply are struggling to look at its flag without feeling complicated, wounded, or outright angry. That's not a culture war talking point. That's just where things stand. Enjoy the fireworks.
