However sincere people’s feelings may be, the American flag also makes excellent politics. Flag-burning is a hot-button issue–a staple of the new realpolitik. “These I issues are uniquely salient in a sound-bite I era because they’re visual and visceral,” says Kathleen Jamieson, dean of the communications school at the University of Pennsylvania. With the demise of communism throughout Eastern Europe, right-wing politicians in particular have struggled to fill the ideological vacuum with cultural “values” issues. North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms, who has led the continuing attack on the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), has put obscenity on the conservative agenda–and put it to good use in his direct-mail fund raising. The anti-porn movement moved into high relief last week when the Broward County, Fla., sheriff arrested two members of the black rap band 2 Live Crew after a federal judge ruled one of their record albums obscene.
Dirty lyrics Obviously, one reason politicians can exploit values issues so effectively is that many Americans care passionately about them. A NEWSWEEK Poll last week found that 68 percent of the respondents support a constitutional ban on flag desecration. The social-values debate cuts across party lines, often revealing deep divisions of class. Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan suggests, chillingly, that a Kulturkampf, or culture struggle, is taking place between college-educated liberals committed to such abstractions as First Amendment rights and the “people who can’t comprehend why the flag can’t be protected… and why they can’t protect their children from dirty lyrics.”
By one measure, the eruption of patriotism comes at an unlikely moment. Typically, nations cling to symbols at times of insecurity–Adolf Hitler made it a crime to “publicly profane” the swastika. America, however, is at peace, its democratic ideals triumphant; until last week’s controversy, few post-Vietnam protesters ever torched the flag.
But by another measure, the flag-waving makes all too much sense: it’s an election year. If naked cynicism were a crime, a number of Republicans would be arrested. Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole noted last week that an opponent’s vote against the flag-desecration amendment “would make a pretty good 30-second spot.” Despite the gravity of altering the nation’s defining document, senior administration officials say there was “zero debate” within the White House over whether Bush should endorse an amendment to the Bill of Rights. Some observers believe the president is counting on the amendment to help repair his relations with the right wing of the party, which feels abandoned on taxes, China and Lithuania.
Meanwhile, legislators are running scared. Ever since Helms made federal funding for purportedly pornographic art a cutting issue, congressmen have been scurrying to avoid any vote that could cast them as pro-obscenity. Now, they’re being forced to prove their patriotism. Harvard constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe says the amendment could not pass the “lights-off test”–that is, it would never pass muster if congressmen could vote in secret. But many apparently feel it’s better to compromise their beliefs than watch their careers go up in smoke over flag-burning. After her campaign put out ambiguous statements, Texas gubernatorial candidate Ann Richards issued a “clarifying” statement supporting the amendment.
High ground To defeat the bill in the House, the Democratic leadership needs 146 votes. Head-counters figure they now have 130 nays (120 of them Democratic). Basically, the Democrats know they will have to do better than Michael Dukakis, whose legalistic rebuttals in the 1988 Pledge of Allegiance volley were a poor answer to Bush’s frontal assaults. Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who lost part of his leg in Vietnam, seized the moral high ground, saying he was “ashamed” of Bush’s flag politics. Consultant Robert Squier suggests candidates could air counterspots showing Republican candidates burning the Constitution.
The ideological camps are far from clearcut, however. Constitutional purists, who are often archconservatives, find themselves aligned with liberal Democrats. Reagan appointee Antonin Scalia, arguably the court’s most conservative jurist, joined the majority both last week and in the 1989 decision knocking down a Texas flag-protection statute. William Safire, who condemned the “White House politics of cultural resentment,” criticized the proposal as an abandonment of conservative principle. “If Democrats have to fear political oblivion,” said GOP consultant John Buckley, “Republicans have to face intellectual hell for exploiting the flag issue.”
The banning of 2 Live Crew’s records in Broward County, and now San Antonio, Texas, has raised disturbing questions about freedom of expression–and sparked a small civil-liberties backlash. (One homemade T shirt at a recent concert said I USED TO LIVE IN AMERICA, NOW I LIVE IN BROWARD COUNTY.) NEWSWEEK’S Poll shows that a majority of participants believe the records should be available in stores, albeit with some restrictions. Sensing a no-win situation, most Florida politicians have stayed out of the obscenity fray–“This is definitely one to let the crazies duke out between themselves,” says one Florida official.
Ultimately, such hot-button issues could backfire. While some political consultants see flag-burning as the perfect way to reach the “low information” voter, others believe you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. “The cynicism people have about politicians wrapping themselves in the flag undercuts the intensity,” says Democratic consultant Geoffrey Garin. After all, Americans love their freedom as much as their flag.
