As nation turns 250, many Americans say the Stars and Stripes is now a red flag

“I just want to say I love our flag, I love our country and I want people to realize this is not about one party or one person,” said Dyer, 38. “Yes, the last few years have been hard, and sometimes it feels like our flag has been taken over. But I’m flying the flag because I’m still proud of our country, even if it’s not where I think it should be 250 years after it was founded.”

National pride may be on the decline, but flagmakers have seen a boost in business this year, with government agencies, private businesses and individuals placing orders for new banners to mark the semiquincentennial.

“Business is up for sure,” said Carter Beard, president of Annin Flagmakers, a sixth-generation family firm based in New Jersey that has sewn flags for events ranging from Abraham Lincoln’s funeral to the Apollo moon landing. “Not like 50%, but in the 20% range. This being the anniversary, we’re definitely seeing a surge of patriotism with people wanting to fly the flag.”

The country may be 250 years old, but until the mid- to late-19th century, flags were displayed mainly on government buildings, historians say. It wasn’t until after the Civil War and the 1876 centennial celebration that Americans started flying their own in earnest.

Bruce Watson stands in front of an American flag — Bruce Watson at his home in Montague, Mass.Hannah Beier for NBC News

The battle over who can lay claim to America’s flag, historians say, has been raging since at least the Vietnam War, when both Democrats and Republicans waved it at demonstrations for or against the conflict that divided the nation.

“The right used it to make the point that patriotism meant that the U.S. could do no wrong even when it did,” said Alex Wagner, an adjunct professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship & Public Affairs. “People on the left used it to make the point that we as Americans shouldn’t be fighting a war that’s at odds with our national principles, like that of self-determination.”

But it was the hard right that “seized the flag” and began smearing all liberals as unpatriotic, said Sean Wilentz, a historian at Princeton University.

“Conservative and right-wing politicians went along with this, exploited it, and the dialectic of disaffection worsened,” Wilentz said, adding that Trump has amplified that brand of patriotism.

Even so, Wagner said, Americans should be embracing the Stars and Stripes.

“Our flag is ever-evolving, like our country,” he said. “The United States has evolved from 13 colonies to the 50-state union that it is now, and the flag has changed along with it. It’s not MAGA’s flag. It’s not Trump’s flag. It’s the American flag, and it belongs to all of us.”

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