A story told in flagpoles.
Dec. 2nd, 2021 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastI haven't posted in a long while. Part of that is finding a roleplaying group online which gets some creative focus. Part of that is having a long-term job that I like.
That job is simple enough. It pays well enough. It's nothing huge. Often, it has me driving long delivery routes to towns in the area. Given where I am, on those drives, I see a lot of political flags and signs of a particular political bent. Some of them have just remained up since the election, I imagine as some kind of imagined defiance of the rest of the country moving on. Some have adopted the well-worn "Don't blame me, I voted for _____" model. Some are already advocating for the 2024 election.
Then, there's the following that I've seen fairly regular along a particular route.
That is a story told in flagpoles, but it helps to get the history of that story. I only have the visual history of that story.
In that video, taken from my cellphone, you see five small white flagpoles in succession. Each beside a stretch of farmland, the third of which bares a pro-Trump flag.
Some months back, something I'd noticed by the end of last winter I'd say, each of those flagpoles was populated. Pole 3 still had it's pro-Trump flag. Poles 1, 2, 4, and 5 each held an American flag. And, I saw the intended symbolism.
"I'm an American patriot," this flag display said. "I'm an American Patriot and the center of that is being a Trump-loving Real Republican."
Being of a conflicting political bent, I got the intended symbolism. I got the claim that being an American Patriot and being a Trump-loving "Real" Republican are one and the same. It annoyed me, because that sentiment isn't exactly helpful in communicating across party lines. But, it wasn't going to do much but be just another of the many, many pro-Trump signs I would see around and about.
Time went on. Wind, rain, and sun all have their ways with fabric. And, this is on a farm. Farms, in order to meet profitable production, need to have a great deal of space and take on a lot of work. So, as the flags fray more and more and more, I have to keep aware that any additional symbolism I feel from that is supplied by me.
Eventually, it came to a point where all the flags were an inch of fabric and fringes flying about in the breeze.
Then, I saw something that surprised me. Something I found quite telling for a political community that finds so much value in their use of symbols. That something is what you see above. Only the Trump flag had been replaced.
American flags were left as mere inches of fabric with fringes tossed about by the breeze. But, that Trump flag was fresh and clean with bold colors.
For a community that so often says that my political bent isn't patriotic precisely because we don't spend as much effort on communicating that via symbols, to have replaced and refreshed the Trump symbol, but left the four-times repeated symbols of America to just waste away to nothing was... something.
Now, I have to force myself to be reasonable, here. Maybe whoever bought two sets of flags in packages of four, leaving them with the replacement for one but not the four-times-repeated American flag? I don't know. That's the scenario I came up with. But, what I see is the symbol of America, that symbol so often used to indicate "we're patriotic and you're not because you aren't displaying this as much as we are" is given to the elements to take down to nothing, but the symbol used to display "I'm on this team and you are triggered!" is kept up.
Maybe it means nothing. But, I told myself that the next time I was driving a route that took me by it, I'd get that recorded just so I could show that what I was seeing was really there as I stated thoughts that, I admit, might be overattributing.
That job is simple enough. It pays well enough. It's nothing huge. Often, it has me driving long delivery routes to towns in the area. Given where I am, on those drives, I see a lot of political flags and signs of a particular political bent. Some of them have just remained up since the election, I imagine as some kind of imagined defiance of the rest of the country moving on. Some have adopted the well-worn "Don't blame me, I voted for _____" model. Some are already advocating for the 2024 election.
Then, there's the following that I've seen fairly regular along a particular route.
That is a story told in flagpoles, but it helps to get the history of that story. I only have the visual history of that story.
In that video, taken from my cellphone, you see five small white flagpoles in succession. Each beside a stretch of farmland, the third of which bares a pro-Trump flag.
Some months back, something I'd noticed by the end of last winter I'd say, each of those flagpoles was populated. Pole 3 still had it's pro-Trump flag. Poles 1, 2, 4, and 5 each held an American flag. And, I saw the intended symbolism.
"I'm an American patriot," this flag display said. "I'm an American Patriot and the center of that is being a Trump-loving Real Republican."
Being of a conflicting political bent, I got the intended symbolism. I got the claim that being an American Patriot and being a Trump-loving "Real" Republican are one and the same. It annoyed me, because that sentiment isn't exactly helpful in communicating across party lines. But, it wasn't going to do much but be just another of the many, many pro-Trump signs I would see around and about.
Time went on. Wind, rain, and sun all have their ways with fabric. And, this is on a farm. Farms, in order to meet profitable production, need to have a great deal of space and take on a lot of work. So, as the flags fray more and more and more, I have to keep aware that any additional symbolism I feel from that is supplied by me.
Eventually, it came to a point where all the flags were an inch of fabric and fringes flying about in the breeze.
Then, I saw something that surprised me. Something I found quite telling for a political community that finds so much value in their use of symbols. That something is what you see above. Only the Trump flag had been replaced.
American flags were left as mere inches of fabric with fringes tossed about by the breeze. But, that Trump flag was fresh and clean with bold colors.
For a community that so often says that my political bent isn't patriotic precisely because we don't spend as much effort on communicating that via symbols, to have replaced and refreshed the Trump symbol, but left the four-times repeated symbols of America to just waste away to nothing was... something.
Now, I have to force myself to be reasonable, here. Maybe whoever bought two sets of flags in packages of four, leaving them with the replacement for one but not the four-times-repeated American flag? I don't know. That's the scenario I came up with. But, what I see is the symbol of America, that symbol so often used to indicate "we're patriotic and you're not because you aren't displaying this as much as we are" is given to the elements to take down to nothing, but the symbol used to display "I'm on this team and you are triggered!" is kept up.
Maybe it means nothing. But, I told myself that the next time I was driving a route that took me by it, I'd get that recorded just so I could show that what I was seeing was really there as I stated thoughts that, I admit, might be overattributing.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-19 01:21 am (UTC)