Upside-down American flag reappears as a right-wing protest symbol after Trump's guilty verdict
Right-wing commentators and supporters of former President Donald Trump have flooded social media with images of upside-down American flags in protest of his historic guilty verdict
CHICAGO (AP) — After Donald Trump's historic guilty verdict, a steady flow of images showing upside-down American flags has appeared on social media as his supporters and right-wing commentators protest his felony conviction.
At least one such flag was spotted Friday outside Trump Tower in New York City as the Republican former president spoke about the trial. Some elected officials, including Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a longtime ally of Trump, have been sharing images of inverted flags online.
The upside-down American flag gained wide attention recently after revelations that it was flown outside the Alexandria, Virginia, home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to halt the certification of the 2020 presidential election results. A flag like that was carried by the rioters while they echoed Trump’s false claims of election fraud.
Right-wing pundits and podcast hosts with hundreds of thousands of followers, as well as regular Americans, rallied around the inverted flag in the hours after Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in his New York hush money trial on Thursday. Among them were Fox News Channel contributors Guy Benson and Katie Pavlich, conservative talk show hosts Graham Allen and Owen Shroyer, and far-right conspiracy theorist and “Stop the Steal” rally organizer Ali Alexander.
