Democrats’ latest method to win again voters is a contemporary embrace of the nation’s oldest image.
Two days forward of Flag Day, when President Donald Trump’s army parade will run by way of the streets of Washington, Democratic Reps. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) fanned out Thursday afternoon to offer a present to their colleagues to unite them.
It was a 4-inch-by-6-inch American flag, which they handed out at virtually the precise second, unbeknownst to them, that Sen. Alex Padilla was getting forcibly eliminated and handcuffed at a Homeland Safety press convention in Los Angeles — an act Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries would later name “unpatriotic.”
The flags, made in Deluzio’s Pennsylvania, got here with a message in an accompanying pricey colleague letter written by Ryan, a West Level grad who served two excursions in Iraq, and Deluzio, a U.S. Navy officer who was additionally deployed there. They’ve joined forces to turn out to be co-chairs of the first-ever, 18-member Democratic Veterans Caucus, shaped simply three days in the past.
“Patriotism does not belong to one party,” the letter learn. “The flag, and the values it stands for, belong to every single American.”
As Democrats search for a message to rebut the MAGA proper, they’re trying inside their very own ranks for a reputable message in opposition to the overreach of these holding energy.
“The timing is very apt, because we’ve now had a senator handcuffed; we’ve had one of my House colleagues charged and now indicted; we’ve had not just the National Guard federalized, but active duty troops deployed against U.S. citizens, and increasingly, Trump, who really is the Republican Party now, their definition of patriotism, is, do you support Trump and MAGA?” Ryan advised POLITICO. “And in the event you don’t, then you definitely’re not patriotic.”
Democrats see the army show going down in Washington on the Military’s 250th birthday — which additionally occurs to coincide with President Donald Trump’s 79th birthday — as emblematic of a president who places himself above the nation. In his speech this week, even California Gov. Gavin Newsom framed his criticism of Trump in patriotic phrases, saying he’s “ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.”
It’s a message {that a} beleaguered get together hopes resonates within the 90 % of counties that shifted to Republicans final November. Or, as Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) put it earlier this yr, it’s time for Democrats to “fucking retake the flag.”
Forward of Trump’s parade, outdoors teams like VoteVets are rallying former servicemembers to make a not-so-subtle distinction. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy officer, is organizing fellow veterans on-line to “call out how Trump is putting his ego first while he fires veterans from federal jobs and guts the VA.” Others who additionally served within the armed forces, like JoAnna Mendoza who’s operating to problem Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, plan to be concerned within the pushback.
“Patriotism is not something the Democratic Party should concede, because patriotism is not something the Republican Party created,” Moore mentioned in an interview.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Instagram Thursday mentioned “any salute to the flag or patriotism or talk of American greatness is completely hollow if you do not respect the freedoms that that flag represents.”
In Iowa final month at a city corridor hosted by the Democratic political motion committee VoteVets, Buttigieg closed his opening remarks with an prolonged meditation on the flag to his three-year-old daughter. The previous Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan for seven months extolled “the values that flag represents, the story, the incredibly rich and inspiring — and yes, very, complicated story, of everything that has happened under that flag and in the name of that flag.”
And it comes at a time when the get together’s brightest stars embrace various veterans — together with some poised to enter governor’s mansions and assist Democrats retake the Home.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, her get together’s gubernatorial nominee in New Jersey, is a former Navy helicopter pilot.
Her candidacy has impressed a gaggle of feminine veterans operating for Congress in 2026, who hope to copy the success of the 2018 wave by operating moderates with nationwide safety expertise.
And like Buttigieg, different potential 2028 presidential contenders are leaning into highly effective nationwide symbols: Kelly can also be a former astronaut. And there may be Ruben Gallego, a Marine fight veteran who served in Iraq.
In making an attempt to reclaim the flag from its right-coded fixture in the meanwhile, Democrats face no simple process: One research discovered {that a} single publicity to the American flag shifts voter sentiment to the appropriate for as much as eight months after.
Main Basic (Ret.) Paul Eaton, a senior adviser to VoteVets, the PAC that sponsored Buttigieg’s city corridor final month, mentioned messaging that has been so profitable on the appropriate to pigeonhole the opposite get together [as] lower than patriotic.”
Mendoza, a retired US Marine, says she finds it “extremely frustrating” when Republicans declare to be the true get together of patriots. Medoza mentioned she intentionally selected her marketing campaign colours to be pink, white and blue to make some extent that “they don’t own it, and we have to take it back.”
“The Republican Party does not own this country, they don’t own the American flag,” she mentioned. “It belongs to the people.”
Democrats have spent years battling perceptions that they’re much less patriotic — and reversing that picture might take simply as lengthy.
However “a key part of the way out of the moment we’re in will be military veterans who can help bridge the divide,” Ryan said. “That’s why I think this reassertion of a constructive, unifying patriotism is absolutely just essential right now.”
CORRECTION: This text initially misspelled Ruben Gallego’s first title, misidentified Hakeem Jeffries’ title, mischaracterized Chris Deluzio’s deployments to Iraq, and misstated Donald Trump’s birthday.
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