How Donald J. Trump Is Appropriating the American Flag

When Donald J. Trump held his post-conviction news conference at Trump Tower after his hush-money trial in Might, he did so in his signature pink (tie), white (shirt) and blue (swimsuit), standing earlier than so many flags he regarded like a head bobbing in an ocean of patriotic hues.

It was a little bit of star-spangled scenography for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who, greater than any of his predecessors, has embraced the flag as his official trend inspiration, utilizing imagery to make it a synonym for himself. (One among his favourite private factoids is that at present, June 14, occurs to be each his birthday and Flag Day, the date designated by Woodrow Wilson in 1916 to commemorate the official adoption of the American flag.)

In nearly each main look, Mr. Trump stands planted in a forest of flags — 54 of them on the final evening of the 2020 Republican conference alone. Descending from Trump Air, he passes beneath an imposing flag waving proudly on the tail, the colours echoed in his clothes as if he alighted from a flying flag himself.

“Most presidents have one flag behind them once they converse, possibly two,” stated Lindsay M. Chervinsky, a senior fellow on the Heart for Presidential Historical past at Southern Methodist College and the writer of the approaching e-book “Making the Presidency.”

However by loading up on the flags, by hugging and kissing the flag, as Mr. Trump did in 2018 after a speech to the Nationwide Federation of Impartial Enterprise and once more on the Conservative Political Motion Convention in 2019 and 2020, Ms. Chervinsky continued, Mr. Trump is taking the custom a step additional. “He’s attempting to equate himself with patriotism and nationalism,” she stated. And his dressing to match is, she stated, “probably the most visible illustration of that.”

As Henry Ward Beecher, the Nineteenth-century clergyman stated in 1861, “A considerate thoughts, when it sees a nation’s flag, sees not the flag, however the nation itself.”

In Mr. Trump’s case, the equation is easy: See him, see the flag, see the nation, get the message. In a visible age, that’s a strong type of Pavlovian conditioning.

Carrying the Flag

Mr. Trump wore navy fits, pink ties and white shirts earlier than getting into politics, however his use of the uniform has advanced. The blue of his fits has turn out to be brighter in latest months — much less navy or midnight blue, and nearer to what Peter Roberti, the president of the Customized Tailors & Designers Affiliation, known as a “Neapolitan blue.” Alan Flusser, a tailor to the tycoon set and the writer of “Dressing the Man,” known as it “cobalt.” It was a comparatively unusual alternative amongst his purchasers, he stated.

“Trump’s sort of blue is one thing you’ll now see extra prevalently on TV, worn by sports activities journalists or those that need to stand aside,” Mr. Flusser stated. Earlier than Covid, he stated, when fits had been extra frequent within the office, “I might estimate that out of fifty navy swimsuit gross sales, possibly three had been of a cobalt nature.” That is nonetheless true amongst politicians, who are likely to favor navy or grey fits.

And although Mr. Trump has, and does, put on ties apart from pink — throughout his New York hush-money trial, which turned partially on choices he made as a businessman, blue and gold ties had been on show — he nearly all the time reverts to his uniform at his most high-stakes political moments.

He wore his pink, white and blue combo when he won the presidency in 2016 and for his first official information convention as president-elect. He wore it throughout his State of the Union addresses in 2019 and 2020; for his speech on the rally on Jan. 6, 2021; and when he left the White House in 2021. He wore it for his mug shot — the history-making photograph that has turn out to be a key a part of his marketing campaign merch. He even wore it for his first official TikTok post.

Possibly it’s happenstance. Steven Cheung, the communications director of the Trump marketing campaign, didn’t reply to questions on Mr. Trump’s alternative of costume apart from to say, “There was no president extra pro-America than President Trump.”

However there isn’t any query that Mr. Trump is an avowed pupil of what individuals put on to do their jobs, each the individuals who have labored for him (his generals, the White House spokesman) and his opponents (Nikki Haley). He additionally understands the semiology of ties. Simply final week, at a rally in Arizona, he announced that he had worn a gold tie on function, as a result of “it represents the solar.” And flags of every kind play a big function in his MAGA rallies, not simply onstage, however as props and statements of solidarity amongst attendees.

Add all that collectively, and it displays the altering cryptography of the American flag, which started as an emblem of nationhood accessible to all, irrespective of their political denomination, turning extra fraught each in the course of the Civil Struggle and within the Nineteen Sixties with the Vietnam Struggle, stated Sean Wilentz, a professor of American historical past at Princeton College.

“It goes from being a supply of unity to a supply of division,” Mr. Wilentz stated. “Hastily the left and the Democrats mainly cede the flag to the best, and the best picks that up and runs with it.” President Ronald Reagan, who was additionally identified for his pink ties (although they had been typically seen as representing the Republican Get together) being a working example. Nonetheless, nobody has run additional with it than Mr. Trump.

“The flag embodies all the pieces he desires to get throughout,” Mr. Wilentz stated. “He’s the flag, and everybody else isn’t. We’re America, and everybody else isn’t.”

It’s, Ms. Chervinsky stated, an strategy that “is immediately out of the authoritarian handbook.” Nearly cartoonishly so.

Flags, for Mr. Trump, function scenography, costume and an indication of allegiance — to him. The theatrics could also be most seen throughout rallies, when everybody will get to take part within the pageantry via costume, however the benefit of embedding them in clothes is that also they are replicable. It’s no accident that Mr. Trump’s supporters, like Doug Burgum, J.D. Vance and Vivek Ramaswamy, arrived at his New York trial in matching pink, white and blue seems.

Because it occurs, Mr. Trump is celebrating his birthday Friday night with a fund-raiser hosted by Membership 47 USA, fashioned to help his re-election, on the Palm Seaside Conference Heart. The invitation includes a photograph of Mr. Trump hugging the flag and specifies a costume code for attendees. Ticket holders are suggested, the invite reads, to put on pink, white and blue.