[NYT] Despite Trump’s Tough Talk, Flag Burning Is Protected Speech

I think with only four years on a "second time around" term, he is wielding a sledge hammer to accomplish certain aims in a very short period of time--and he's not afraid of pissing people off to do that.

Speaking from my own very limited but direct contact with some of what he's doing in education, he is arguably working on a long-overdue course correction that, while clumsily implemented, has a very high likelihood of achieving real results that will survive into the long term. Again, there is collateral damage with such an approach . . . but he is exercising a type of authority that at least a large portion of the American public seems to desire. And a large percentage of that public seems to have a philosophical attitude of "you gotta break some eggs to make an omelette" in tolerating the mess that he's making in so many areas.

How will history judge him? that to me is the fascinating question. During the Reagan years folks were convinced Reagan was the worst president ever. History has been much kinder to Reagan.

In education, some of the reforms he is attempting are in response to academic practices that have been *clearly* illegal since 1964. The problem has been that the federal government itself has sent contradictory messages to academic institutions, e.g., with federal affirmative action programs. The result over the past 50-60 years has been confusion on the part of anyone having anything to do with academic hiring, academic admissions, academic research, etc. The current atmosphere is one where administrators are finally taking a good, long, hard look at their own practices--something they have not done at all (as far as I can tell) for the past 50-60 years.

While it's not fun right now to be an administrator in academia, I think there is a better than 50/50 chance that history will judge the academic reform part of the Trump 2.0 Administration pretty favorably. But again, it's definitely an uncomfortable and stressful time to be in academic administration right now.

 

you may have your detractors, but you are always entertaining.

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/08/26/flag-burn-trump-order-protest/

Man burns U.S. flag near White House to protest Trump order
Secret Service detains man in Lafayette Square claiming to be Army combat veteran.

August 26, 2025 at 3:01 a.m. EDT
Today at 3:01 a.m. EDT

By Martin Weil
A man set fire to a U.S. flag across the street from the White House Monday evening to protest President Donald Trump’s anti-flag-burning executive order.

The man was arrested in Lafayette Square, but not on grounds of violating the order — or of burning the flag. Instead he was charged with violating a law against setting fires at federal parks.

Video posted on social media shows the man in the park saying that he would ignite the flag to protest Trump’s order issued earlier Monday. The man called the order illegal.

The Supreme Court has ruled that burning the flag is a mode of symbolic speech protected under the First Amendment. Trump’s order appeared to acknowledge the court’s decision, but to aim at instances of flag burning where he indicated that the court’s ruling might not apply, such as when they result in incitement to “imminent lawless action.”

In the video, the man who burned the flag described himself as a retired Army combat veteran. “I fought for every one of your rights,” he told perhaps two dozen people gathered near him in the park.

The man said no president had the right to make an order infringing on the First Amendment.

“We burn this flag in protest,” he said.

After the man ignited the flag, the video showed a law enforcement officer quelling the blaze with a fire extinguisher.

In the video, the man was taken into custody by officers who appeared to be from the U.S. Secret Service.

The Secret Service said it “detained an individual in Lafayette Park for igniting an object.” It said the person detained was then turned over to the U.S. Park Police which has jurisdiction in the park.

The Park Police said it made an arrest in connection with a fire that was prohibited under a section of the code of federal regulations that deals with fires in, on or at parks, forests or federal property.

Neither agency reported specifically that the fire involved a flag and they did not identify the man by name.


​

 

Ronald Reagan From the People’s Perspective: A Gallup Poll Review
Reagan’s image improved substantially in the years after he left office

https://news.gallup.com/poll/11887/Ronald-Reagan-From-Peoples-Perspective-Gallup-Poll-Review.aspx

historians' rankings 2000-2021:

https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2021/?page=overall

see also:

Epilogue Ronald Reagan and the Historians

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230616196_15

abstract:

Abstract
For many years academic historians, many of them liberal Democrats, gave Ronald Reagan a bad press. In a survey of historians taken between 1988 and 1990 some 62 percent rated him as either below average as a president or even a failure.1 Representative of this assessment was the history published by Michael Schaller in 1992, which argued that Reagan’s appeal was “based on his easy charm, not his talent or accomplishment.”2 While Schaller admired Reagan’s communication skills, he described a president who was barely in charge of his administration, he emphasized the scandals associated with it, and questioned whether Reagan deserved much credit for ending the Cold War. Reagan emerged as sort of sincere Wizard of Oz, an illusionist who believed in his illusions: “Reagan succeeded, as few actors or politicians have, in persuading Americans to suspend their disbelief. It was an era when saying something made it so, when, as in a daydream, anything seemed possible.”3 Leading journalists too offered less than admiring analyses. In what remains the best biography of Reagan, Lou Cannon presented him as a man with considerable gifts but also serious limitations, a supremely self-confident president who was able to set a direction for his administration but whose lack of curiosity and his failure to analyze issues in depth meant that he was somewhat at the mercy of his staff.4 Haynes Johnson offered a president who failed to address the real problems of the country, one who was “sleepwalking through history.”5
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