In the newest example of “Jesus Kellyanne can you PLEASE take his phone away?” President-elect Donald J. Trump — who will soon be sworn in as our nation’s 45th Commander-in-Chief — took to Twitter this morning for one of his more stunning admissions in quite some time.
On the table is the issue of burning the American flag, perhaps in reaction to the news that a handful of college students in Massachusetts burned a flag this week in protest to the election results. Burning the American flag is a Constitutionally protected right under the First Amendment stemming from the SCOTUS 1989 case Texas v. Johnson. The landmark case under Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that any statute or law that criminalizes the desecration of a venerated object like the American Flag violates a person’s First Amendment privileges as outlined by the Bill of Rights.
Despite the law, our President-elect seems to have different ideas for the future of our country:
“Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag,” Trump wrote. “[I]f they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” The Tweet is at least the first one in a while not to take bizarre aim at CNN, his favorite target as of late.
Someone absolutely needs to tell Trump to put away his Twitter account. He is acting like a petulant adolescent, not the president of the greatest nation in the world.
Trump has little knowledge of the law and plays to the dumbest person in the room. We might all want to punch someone in the face for flag burning or we might say we want to deport them or some other dire threat. We know we can’t but it feels good to say it. The difference is that WE are not the president, or soon-to-be president. Donald Trump is and he needs to stop acting like a teenager who is getting off on mouth-flashing.
