Progressive reaction to the Alitos’ flags has run headlong into the otherwise quaint debate over changing the state flag in Maine.
Progressive reaction to the Alitos’ flags has run headlong into the otherwise quaint debate over changing the state flag in Maine.
I t wasn’t enough for national media to concoct a story that the flags flying at Justice Samuel Alito’s properties proved that he supported the January 6 Capitol protests. Local papers in Maine are now publishing equally specious stories tying the national debate to a statewide referendum on changing Maine’s flag. This insults Maine voters’ intelligence and smears the historic iconography of my beloved home state.
In the wake of the New York Times running a series of reports about which flags Alito and his wife have flown over their properties, including the Revolutionary War–era Appeal to Heaven naval ensign, progressives everywhere swiftly got with the program. CNN proclaimed the Appeal to Heaven flag “controversial.” San Francisco City Hall dutifully removed the Appeal to Heaven flag from its plaza, where it had flown undisturbed for the past 60 years. Rolling Stone reported that the flag also flew above the Maine summer home of Leonard Leo, a prominent figure in the conservative legal movement.
Now the progressive reaction to the coincidence of two originalists flying the same historic flag has run headlong into the otherwise calm debate over changing the state flag in Maine.
After two failed attempts to change the flag in the legislature since 2021, reformers finally got a bill over the line to hold a referendum this fall. With this, voters will decide whether to keep the current flag – with the motto Dirigo (meaning “I lead”) emblazoned on it — or switch to the historic Pine Tree flag. The proposed Pine Tree flag was actually the original state banner adopted in 1901 before Maine joined a national bandwagon in 1909 and adopted the seal-on-blue style that is currently used by nearly half the states. The center of the controversy is that both the Appeal to Heaven flag and the proposed Pine Tree flag feature, well, a pine tree. Indeed, the white pine is Maine’s official state tree.
But Maine’s historic state flag and the Appeal to Heaven flag are clearly not the same. The former features a beige field and the latter a white one; the designs of the pine trees are different; only one (Maine’s) has the North Star in the corner; only one (the Appeal to Heaven flag) has words printed on it. Anyone can spot the differences at a glance.
Maine’s largest papers do not agree. The Bangor Daily News, a left-wing outlet, fretted that the Pine Tree flag might get lumped in with the supposedly suspect Revolution-era symbol and go down to defeat in the fall referendum. The Portland Press Herald, also a left-wing paper, ran a story on the same day with the headline “Right-wing protest banner adds new wrinkle to Maine flag referendum debate.”
This stance on the flag debate is deeply insulting to the intelligence of Maine voters and to the state’s history. None of the Maine voters or elected officials with whom I spoke to for this article thought anyone would confuse the two flags.
“Outside of the paper, I haven’t heard anyone say they would vote against [the Pine Tree flag] for that reason,” State representative Nathan Carlow told me.
State representative Josh Morris emphasized that reducing the Maine flag debate to a partisan squabble is overwrought. “It hasn’t been a left/right debate,” he said, “[State senator] Eric Brakey, who’s one of the most conservative members, was a big proponent of the Pine Tree flag. Some on the left wanted to change it just because there’s two white guys on the current flag, but even some of the Democrats are sick of that kind of politics and voted to keep it.”
As to whether voters will confuse the Pine Tree and the Appeal to Heaven flags?
“I think the people of Maine are smart enough to tell the difference,” Morris said.
Carlow himself prefers the current flag for aesthetic reasons, but the Pine Tree flag has its proponents.
“I see a lot more citizens flying the Pine Tree flag than I see citizens flying the Dirigo flag,” Nate Stephenson, a lifelong Mainer and Portland resident, tells me. “It’s better for branding, and Maine’s all about branding. It’s Vacationland.”
Does Stephenson think voters will confuse the two banners?
“I would hope not, I would hope voters would take the two seconds to Google and see that they’re not the same.”
The reality is that most voters will likely choose a state flag based on aesthetic preferences, not political or ideological loyalties. (For more information on the surprisingly heated state flag debate, see the dueling YouTube videos by CGP Grey, a reform proponent, and J. J. McCullough, who thinks current state flags are fine.)
As I see it, the Appeal to Heaven flag should not be regarded as politically controversial since it is a beloved historical symbol of our nation’s founding. The flag has long been popular in New England, where there is a preponderance of pine trees. But even if one were partisan enough to swallow the recent viral story that the Appeal to Heaven flag is some sort of far-right emblem, it’s still not the same as Maine’s new/old Pine Tree flag. To suggest as much is either a cynical attempt to defame Maine’s historic flag or an insult to Maine voters. Maine’s papers should be ashamed for pushing this nonsense.
Possibly in recognition of this, the Press Herald’s editorial board had the audacity to author an op-ed at the beginning of the month arguing that “vexatious comparisons with Appeal to Heaven can, frankly, go to hell.”
The vexatious vexillological comparisons that your own reporters — and hardly anyone else — were making? Agreed, Press Herald. You can go to hell.