In another shocking turn of events, the guy who likes to hump the U.S. flag and dodged the draft five times is “all in” on a proposed constitutional amendment to ban flag burning.
Trump on Saturday tweeted his support for the proposal by Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines, calling it a “no brainer!”
Daines introduced the proposed constitutional amendment on Flag Day, in between sucking up to Trump on Twitter by wishing the president a happy birthday—repeatedly—with a bunch of white people and a cake featuring a sugar portrait of the two men posing in the White House wearing the same suit and tie. Gross.
The proposed amendment reads: “The Congress shall have power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.”
In a statement, Daines said, “Our United States flag is a timeless symbol of liberty that tells the story of America, the story of our enduring pursuit of freedom. Remembering the sacrifices of all who carried its colors into battle, our nation should always render the flag the honor and dignity it is due.”
Reminder: He’s excluding Trump in that last line.
Daines has been attempting this virtue signaling stunt for the past three years on Flag Day. Unfortunately for him, the Supreme Court already has ruled that flag burning is a form of symbolic speech protected by the First Amendment.
In Texas v. Johnson, the court ruled 5-4 in 1989 that Gregory Lee Johnson had a constitutional right to burn the U.S. flag outside the Republican National Convention in Dallas, TX, in 1984. Johnson was arrested for violating a Texas statute while protesting Ronald Reagan’s policies, but he won the case years later in the nation’s highest court.
In 2016, Trump said people who burn the flag should be stripped of their citizenship or thrown in jail for a year.
Last year, he said kneeling NFL players protesting racial injustice and police brutality shouldn’t be in the country.
“You have to stand proudly for the national anthem or you shouldn’t be playing, you shouldn’t be there,” Trump said on Fox & Friends in May 2018. “Maybe you shouldn’t be in the country.”
Actually, Trump should be happy Daines’ proposed amendment hasn’t made it into the Constitution, because this probably counts as physical desecration of the flag of the United States: