Taking Trump’s flag bait

What's a First Amendment guy to do when the president-elect suggests putting people in jail or revoking their citizenship for exercising constitutionally protected speech?

Don't get excited. After all, it was only a tweet.

President-elect Donald Trump greeted the morning Tuesday by tweeting, at 5:55 a.m., 'Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag - if they do, there must be consequences - perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!” He appeared to be reacting to a segment on Fox news about flag burning. The guy who set so many pairs of pants afire now is worried about flags.

I've read that we media types should pay less attention to Trump's tweets. It's just propaganda, aimed at keeping his supporters happy. He's just spouting off. It's his actions that matter. I can see that.

So if it's far bigger news that Trader Joe's is coming to Coralville than the incoming president advocating harsh punishment for free speech, so be it. The prospect of delicious peppermint Candy Cane Joe Joes is far more interesting than a Trump twitter feed peppered with free speech no-nos.

It might be considered 'smug” to point out the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled flag-burning is protected speech, or that truly 'great” nations accept even abhorrent expressions of dissent. It's the authoritarian states where people get thrown in jail for expressing opinions the strongman dislikes. Leave compelled patriotism to the North Koreans.

That said, flag burning is despicable. It's the sort of protest that inflames rather than persuades. A few years back Rep. Bobby Kaufmann, R-Wilton, of 'Suck it up, buttercup” fame, worked to outlaw desecrating and misusing flags at military funerals. The Westboro Baptist Church crowd was doing just that, and Kaufmann argued it was the equivalent of the famous 'yelling fire in a crowded theater.” Not all speech should be protected.

It's hard not to be sympathetic to Kaufmann's cause. But a federal judge struck down the statutes, ruling that Westboro's actions, no matter how condemnable, are protected by the First Amendment.

And that's the right call. It's always been speech from the fringes, expression pushing the boundaries of our capacity for tolerance, that ensures First Amendment rights for everyone. But maybe the president-elect now believes defending politically incorrect free expression is just more political correctness.

To their credit, Republican congressional leaders shrugged off Trump's tweet. Nobody seems all that interested in opening up a flag debate. Maybe I should have taken their lead.

But when a guy who is about to become the world's most powerful leader, presiding over vast federal law enforcement resources and considerable executive powers, says we should jail dissenters, it's difficult to simply shrug. And that's especially true when it's a guy who blacklists journalists, assails reporters for critical, accurate reporting and says we should open up libel laws to go after them.

So I've taken the bait. I'm still working under the old paradigm where the president's words matter a great deal. Speaking of a great deal, 'Two-buck Chuck” is only $3 at Trader Joe's.

' Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com