While many Americans agree with the sentiment behind President Donald Trump’s latest executive order, his attempt to criminalize the act of burning the American flag has some of his fellow conservatives voicing their concerns over our constitutional right to freedom of speech.
“I would never in a million years harm the American flag,” conservative talk radio host Jesse Kelly wrote in an X post on Monday. “But a president telling me I can’t has me as close as I’ll ever be to lighting one on fire. I am a free citizen. And if I ever feel like torching one, I will. This is garbage.”
The drama stems from a new executive order Trump signed on Monday, which would see flag-burners go to jail for one year. The president claimed the decision was made in an effort to prevent riots.
“What happens when you burn a flag is the area goes crazy,” Trump said in front of reporters and staff. “If you have hundreds of people, they go crazy. You can do other things. You can burn this piece of paper. You can — and it’s — but when you burn the American flag, it incites riots, at levels that we’ve never seen before. People go crazy, in a way, both ways. There are some that are going crazy for doing it. There are others that are angry, angry about them doing it.”
This also could be seen as Trump’s latest push against Americans’ right to freedom of speech, and it doesn’t look like the red team is going for it. After his announcement, some conservatives called out Trump and the controversial order, stating that it infringes upon the U.S. Constitution.
“I anticipate significantly more flag burnings in the weeks ahead,” another social media user wrote.
Even Fox’s Brit Hume stepped in with thoughts, pointing out that former President George H.W. Bush was also against flag-burning. However, his process for trying to end it wasn’t done by just signing off on an executive order but rather through proper protocol.
“George H.W. Bush ran against flag burning in 1988 and spent a whole week campaigning on the issue,” Hume explained. “But he called for a constitutional amendment to ban the practice. He didn’t pretend he could ban it by an executive order that flies in the face of constitutional speech protections. C’mon man.”
Check out more social media reactions to the executive order, below.
