Source: https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/11/30/flag-n30.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-21 20:22:04+00:00

Document:
When he tweeted yesterday that “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag—if they do, there must be consequences—perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!,” United States president-elect Donald Trump put on full display his shocking disregard to the two constitutional provisions closely associated with fundamental democratic rights–the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Trump’s authoritarian outburst was apparently triggered by the widespread demonstrations against his November 8 election, which included a flag burning at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, followed by the school’s well-publicized removal of its campus flag.
Three decades ago, Cole co-authored the Supreme Court brief on behalf of Gregory Johnson, a demonstrator convicted of burning an American flag outside the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, during a protest against the Reagan administration.
Texas v. Johnson, decided in 1989, established what should seem obvious, that the First Amendment’s prohibition of laws “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances” protects burning the American flag as an expression of political opposition to the US government and its policies.
“If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,” according to the ruling. The next year, in United States v. Eichman, the Supreme Court held the “Flag Protection Act,” passed in response to Texas v. Johnson, unconstitutional as well.
“The President-elect is a very strong supporter of the First Amendment, but there’s a big difference between that and burning the American flag,” Miller said, in utter disregard for the Supreme Court’s responsibility to define the limits of governmental authority under the Constitution.
Under the separation of powers underlying the US constitutional scheme, Texas v. Johnson and United States v. Eichman establish precedents binding on all branches of government, including the incoming president, unless the Supreme Court itself chooses to reconsider and overrule the cases, a very rare occurrence because of the doctrine of stare decisis that favors legal continuity.
The denial and revocation of citizenship have reactionary historical antecedents.
The US Constitution did not protect US citizenship until after the Civil War, when the victorious North, then led by “radical Republicans” conscious of the necessity to restructure the fundamental relationship between the federal and state governments and individuals, compelled the former Confederate states to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment as a condition of their readmission to the United States.
In Afroyim v. Rusk (1967), the Supreme Court invalidated an immigration service ruling that stripped a naturalized US citizen of citizenship for voting in the Israeli election.
Trump’s recent tweet recalls his attack on birthright citizenship during his campaign that echoed Nazi measures, which began as early as July 1933, to strip Jews, Roma and “Afro-Germans” of their citizenship, setting the stage for the Holocaust.

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