Democrat Tells Party to Stop Losing the Flag to People Who Tried to Steal the Election

The Numbers Are Bad, and Suozzi Knows It

Here's the thing about the polling Suozzi is working with. It's rough. According to an Elon University survey released last month, just 18% of self-described Democrats said they felt "proud" to be an American. Republicans clocked in at 68%. That is not a gap. That is a canyon.

The New York Post also cites a Reuters/Ipsos survey finding that 64% of Republicans plan to display an American flag or bunting outside their home this July 4th weekend, compared with 27% of Democrats. Now, flag display has always meant different things to different people, and there are entire zip codes worth of nuance baked into those numbers. But politically? In a country where you win elections by convincing persuadable voters you share their values? Those numbers are a flashing red warning light.

Suozzi published his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday, framing it around America's 250th birthday. "I love America," he wrote. "Unfortunately, as we celebrate our nation's 250th birthday, too many Americans associate those three words only with Republicans. Democrats need to change that." Hard to argue with the diagnosis, even if you want to argue about the cure.

What Suozzi Is Actually Saying

To his credit, Suozzi is not writing a bumper sticker. The op-ed, as reported by the Post, is a genuine attempt to articulate what Democratic patriotism looks like and why it matters. He argues that patriotism "doesn't ask Americans to whitewash the country's shortcomings" but to confront them while trusting that the American system has the capacity to correct its own mistakes. That's a real argument, rooted in a real democratic tradition.

He cited the abolitionist movement, women's suffrage, civil rights, and the simple fact that the American Revolution "fueled struggles for independence, democracy and self-determination from Europe to Latin America." None of that is wrong. All of it is the kind of thing that should be easy for Democrats to say out loud without flinching. The question is why it requires a WSJ op-ed in 2026 to make the case.

His sharpest line might be this one: "Patriotism doesn't demand blind loyalty. It demands faith that our country is worth improving and confidence that our ideals are worth defending." That's a clean reframe. Whether anyone outside the readership of the Wall Street Journal actually hears it is a separate and much thornier question.

The Problem Suozzi Is Too Polite to Name Directly

Let's be clear about what Suozzi is doing here. He's running a tough re-election race in a swing district that Trump carried in 2024. He won his seat back in 2024 by only three percentage points against his Republican challenger, Michael Lipetri, a former state assemblyman and the same guy he'll face again in 2026. Suozzi is not writing this op-ed for the abstract good of the party. He is writing it because he needs suburban voters in Nassau County to believe he loves America, because Lipetri is going to spend the next sixteen months telling them he doesn't.

That's not cynicism, by the way. It's called politics. The cynical reading is that Suozzi is trying to have it both ways: positioning himself as a patriotic moderate while voting with House Democrats on things Lipetri is already calling "American-hating communism." Lipetri told the Post exactly this, saying "talk is cheap" and accusing Suozzi of trying to "desperately distance himself" from his own voting record. That's a Republican attack line, and it comes pre-loaded with bad faith. But it will work on some voters, which is why Suozzi is writing op-eds in July.

The Napkin Incident, Which Is Also a Real Thing That Happened

The New York Post, being the New York Post, did not let the patriotism conversation go by without mentioning Dariliaza Avila Chevaier, the socialist who won the Democratic primary in New York's 13th Congressional District covering northern Manhattan and the Bronx. She once posted on social media, according to the Post, that she "forgot to get napkins so I just wiped my hand on the American flag behind me."

Look, that is not a great quote. We can all agree on that. Whether it represents a meaningful wing of the Democratic Party or a single person who said a stupid thing on social media is a question worth asking. The Republican Party, after all, includes people who beat Capitol Police officers with flagpoles on January 6th, and we don't usually let that define every conservative's relationship with the flag. But the Post is not wrong that this is the kind of thing that circulates on Facebook in swing districts and costs Democrats votes they cannot afford to lose.

Suozzi's op-ed implicitly acknowledges this tension when he writes that Democrats should "reject both the politics of resentment on the right and ideological purity on the left." He's not naming Chevaier. He doesn't have to.

The History That Makes This Argument Infuriating to Hear

Here is the part where we have to say the quiet part loud. The party that Suozzi is urging Democrats to compete with on patriotism includes the people who told Vice President Mike Pence he should be hanged if he certified the 2020 election results. It includes the people who have spent the Trump years dismantling oversight agencies, firing inspectors general, threatening judges, and treating the Constitution as a suggestion. It includes a president who has, per Suozzi's own op-ed, sent "masked agents head-to-head with U.S. citizens" and attacked "elections and voting rights."

Suozzi says all of that and still concludes that Democrats need to do better at claiming the mantle of patriotism. He's not wrong. But there is something genuinely depressing about the fact that the party that has spent a decade actually defending democratic institutions has to write Wall Street Journal op-eds explaining that it loves the country, while the party that tried to end democracy gets credit for flying more flags on the Fourth of July.