When Donald Trump takes office again, there will be protests. Flags will be waved: rainbow LGBTQ Pride flags; black, white green, and red Palestinian flags; black and white BLM flags — symbols representing every corner of the progressive movement.
There will likely not be many red, white, and blue flags. Those banners belong to MAGA enthusiasts.
In considering how they want to represent their cause the opposition should take their lead from an unlikely source — Israel. While the Jewish state is persona non grata in many liberal circles, Israelis know how to protest.
In the nine months before the 10/7 terror attack, hundreds of thousands of Israelis took to the streets every week in opposition to proposed judicial reform legislation that would have severely curtailed the judiciary’s ability to strike down “unreasonable” laws. A broad coalition of Israelis saw this move as threatening the country’s democratic character.
Similar to the situation in the United States, Israel’s national flag had long been the symbol of the political right. On Jerusalem Day, which commemorates the taking of the Old City in the 1967 Six-Day War, thousands of religious nationalists traditionally march through Arab neighborhoods waving Israel’s flag, while chanting anti-Arab slogans.
Just as many liberal Americans have come to associate the red, white, and blue with the suppression of minority rights, left-leaning Israelis associated their country’s blue and white standard with the hateful Jerusalem Day marches. At first, few Israeli flags were seen at the democracy movement protests.
I joined my Israeli relatives in a protest, shortly before 10/7. I was shocked to find myself in a massive scrum of blue and white flags, flapping in the wind.
My relatives told me that they and their fellow protesters were tired of being told that opposing the government was unpatriotic. They had as much right to their flag as did the religious nationalists supporting a judicial coup.
Oversized copies of Israel’s Declaration of Independence were also unfurled at the rallies. The declaration’s promise that the Jewish state would “ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants,” remains aspirational — much like the ideals in America’s Declaration of Independence. Nonetheless, the protesters saw their country’s founding hopes, symbolized by their flag, as worth striving for.
To maintain a broad-based coalition the organizers focused exclusively on opposing the judicial reform, with the plethora of blue and white standards defining the movement in the broadest context possible. Perhaps they took a lesson from the American left, which has often been fractured by infighting over the scope of its agenda.
Liberal Israelis and American progressives differ when it comes to how they view the founding ideals of their respective countries. Jewish Israelis generally revere their nation’s founders and their quest to be free from persecution; the American left has grown increasingly cynical about the values expressed by the revolutionary generation. Reclaiming their flag was a more natural fit for the democracy protesters, than it would be for progressives to embrace the symbol of the United States.
Nonetheless, imagine how it would impact the image of protests to defend democracy, if marchers massed across the United States waved red, white and blue flags. Imagine how difficult it would be to brand protests against deportations, or abortion restrictions as unpatriotic, if those causes are draped in the American flag — even more so if oversized copies of our Declaration of Independence were unfurled during the demonstrations.
While recent attempts to gin up protests had disappointing results, the next four years will surely provoke the type of outrage that leads citizens to the streets. The symbols aligned with the inevitable demonstrations will help determine the impact of the anti-MAGA movement.
Israel’s democracy protesters went on hiatus after the country united to fight its common enemies. But the demonstrations had, at least temporarily, blocked full passage of the judicial reform bill. The broad-based appeal of the movement could not be ignored.
To thwart Trump’s agenda his opponents have to significantly grow their coalition. The U.S. flag would bring the ideals of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness into the left’s collective conversation — treating America’s promise as an uncashed check, rather than as a bank account funded by a Ponzi scheme. Progressives could rally potential allies who see only pessimism in the patchwork of causes the opposition embraces.
After November’s election results the once proud liberal tradition is looking to revive its fortunes. Reclaiming the flag is a good place to start.
Krull is a lawyer and writer.
