Flags will be half-staff on Inauguration Day. Selfish Trump can't stand it. | Opinion
You can tell a lot about person by the way they handle symbolic gestures, those small but significant actions that signal honor and respect.
Incoming President Donald Trump railed recently about the outrage that is apparently sweeping through the nation.
The American flag, it seems, will be flying at half-staff when he is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
“Look at what they’ve done to our once GREAT America over the past four years ‒ It’s a total mess!” Trump ranted on Jan. 3 on social media.
“In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast. Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out."
Let’s do.
Trump had a fit over half-staff flags honoring McCain
You can tell a lot about person by the way they handle symbolic gestures, those small but significant actions that signal honor and respect.
Take Trump’s handling of the flag when Arizona U.S. Sen. John McCain died.
According to federal rules, the flag must be flown at half-staff on all federal buildings, grounds and naval vessels in Washington, D.C., on the day of and the day after a senator dies. But other presidents have honored other senators who have died in office by keeping the flag at half-staff until their burials.
McCain died on a Saturday evening in 2018, and just after midnight early Monday, the flag on the White House was hoisted back to full staff.
This, as flags at the Capitol and all over Washington, D.C., remained at half-staff in tribute to McCain.
It took no less than a national outcry, a request for military intervention and a plea by the American Legion to get Trump to relent on his dramatic show of disrespect.
By mid-afternoon that Monday, the flag was returned to half-staff, where it remained through the day of McCain’s interment.
After Carter's death, Trump has learned nothing
It was petty and political, and the sort of signature move we came to expect of Trump 45.
Now, the flag is once again at half-staff, in tribute to former President Jimmy Carter, and it seems Trump 47 hasn’t learned a thing.
President Joe Biden ordered all flags lowered for 30 days to honor Carter, as has been the custom since 1954.
The nation’s 39th president died on Dec. 29, which means the flags will be at half-staff on the day that Trump becomes the nation’s 47th president.
And Trump is pitching an absolute fit.
“The Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration,” he ranted on Truth Social.
“They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves.”
Says the man who clearly is thinking only about himself.
You can tell a lot about person by the way they handle symbolic gestures, those small but significant actions that signal honor and respect.
The nerve of that Jimmy Carter, to die just before Donald Trump’s triumphant return to office.
Laurie Roberts is a columnist at the Arizona Republic, where this column first appeared. Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com, or follow her on X (formerly Twitter) at @LaurieRobertsaz, on Threads at @LaurieRobertsaz and on BlueSky at @laurieroberts.bsky.social