'We need to take back the flag': Why patriotic symbols were all over the 'No Kings' protests

[KPN]

House Speaker Mike Johnson and other top Republicans have called the “No Kings” protests that swept the country over the weekend “hate America” rallies. They might have felt differently if they’d visited the rotary at the intersection of West Roxbury Parkway and Centre Street on Saturday. Under a blue fall sky, more than 100 protesters ringed the roundabout holding signs and symbols associated with American patriotism. Some displayed messages like “Save the Constitution” or waved American flags. The story was similar elsewhere. In thousands of communities nationwide, protesters critical of President Trump and his actions carried signs like “Resistance is patriotic,” “Nothing is more American than opposing a tyrant,” and “I’m here because I love America.” They dressed up like the Statue of Liberty. They chanted “USA!” and sang “America the Beautiful.”

Using patriotic symbols is a tactical choice for protest movements, and some of the most successful ones in US history have. During the 1960s, civil rights activists carried American flags and quoted the country’s founding documents. The Tea Party protesters who pushed the Republican Party rightward during Barack Obama’s presidency dressed up in colonial garb and took their name from the 1773 protest in Boston Harbor. One reason protest movements adopt patriotic symbols is obvious: It associates their cause with the country’s core ideals. “He is destroying this document that our country was founded upon,” Hathaway Norman, a legal assistant standing by the rotary in West Roxbury, said of Trump while holding a sign that featured the US Constitution and an image of George Washington’s face.

For others, patriotic signs were an argument about which side’s values better align with the country’s founding ethos. “True America stands for free people and freedom of speech and freedom of religion,” said Megan Reilly Padilla, a public school teacher who held a handwritten poster that said “Defend Democracy” alongside her dog, Maple, whose collar bore a “Dogs for Democracy” sign. With that in mind, I asked Ralph Tisei, who stood by the rotary waving a medium-sized version of the Stars and Stripes, whether his protest emblem of choice had anything to do with Republican remarks associating No Kings with hating America. “That’s why I brought it,” he said. “We need to take back the flag,” said his sister Joanne, a retired Boston Public School teacher, adding that she’d recently hung one outside her house.

But overall, the No Kings marches have hewed toward patriotic symbols more than any other Trump-era protest so far, from the Women’s March to Black Lives Matter. Said Norman, the protester who carried a copy of the Constitution: “It’s important to all of us to remember that this is what we are all here for.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/10/20/newsletters/starting-point-no-kings-boston/?p1=Article_Recirc_Most_Popular
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I agree completely.

[S/V Loner]

1. I use the 1776 flag to...

make a statement about what this nation was founded on.

[kimbutgar]

2. People were handing out small flags at our no kings protest. I was displaying the one I got at the June March !

[Deep State Witch]

3. Flying Our Flag Proudly!

My husband was in an inflatable cat costume and was flying our flag proudly!

[obamanut2012]

4. Lots of America flags in Sacramento on Saturday

[Wednesdays]

5. I agree.

When I was protesting Desert Storm back in '91, I carried an American flag, and I caught quite a bit of flak for it from fellow protestors. I told them we have every right to the flag as the pro-war people.

[deRien]

6. There were two

older men who had a large older flag - looked like 48 stars at the rally I attended.. there is probably a very interesting story of its origin…