Democrats are reclaiming the flag. It’s about time

This past fourth of July, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D) went before the television cameras to deliver an important address about patriotism.

Patriotism, Moore declared, means fighting for values and “the hope of a future even if we will never see it.” Using that standard, he argued that Americans must see the humanity and pain in one another and remember that “God’s grace is not only offered to the saint [but] to the sinner, too.”

In his speech, Moore drew a bright line between patriotism and President Trump’s nationalism. Nationalism, he said, “emboldens people to feel bigger than somebody else — to name the grievance, to find the target, to give people someone to blame.”

Fear is nationalism’s rocket fuel. Faith is what sustains patriotism.

Moore’s speech matters because the sentiments he expressed are being echoed by Democrats across the country. Trump has upended the American compact — namely, the civil religion of the country that affirms the principles of the Declaration of Independence and upholds the U.S. Constitution designed to implement them.

In 2005, Trump told the New York Times: “When they came up with the wonderful statement, all men are created equal, never has there been a more false statement.” Twenty years later Trump has ripped apart the Constitution’s elegant design of separating powers and abrogated them to himself.

The Democratic Party’s embrace of old-fashioned patriotism began in 2025. Two days before Flag Day (which happens to be Trump’s birthday), Reps. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) distributed American-made flags to their colleagues. The letter that accompanied their gift read, “The flag, and the values it stands for,........

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