As I’ve discovered, flying Old Glory makes people assume you support Trump.

Follow this authorRick Reilly's opinions

Then, a week later, it happens again, only in reverse. I'm riding when a woman leans out of her green Subaru and hollers, “F--- Trump!” and flips me off. She’d seen the flag and figured the same thing as the guy in the truck.

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This lady thinks I’m a Trumper.

Which brings me to a question for Friday — Flag Day: When did the American flag become another Trump property?

And if the former president doesn’t quite own it, he has definitely co-opted it. Nowadays, if you see a jacked-high pickup with four American flags, you either honk proudly or move three lanes away. There’s a house on my block with a giant Trump flag hanging from the roof. Do you ever see a Biden flag? Me neither, not once. Online, you can find dozens of American flags for sale with Donald Trump’s name or face on them. Good luck finding one with Biden’s.

Presidential candidates have always been glad to wrap themselves in the flag, of course. But with Trump, it has never looked more like a Hollywood prop. Trump doesn’t care about the flag any more than he cares about being a Republican. What he cares about is how he looks holding it.

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I was with Trump one time, 20 years ago, when he kept mis-introducing me as “the guy who runs Sports Illustrated” or “this guy owns SI!” I just worked at the place. When I asked him why he was lying to people, he said, “Sounds better.”

Trump loves the flag, like the Bible, because it looks better. The American flags flying at his properties are about the size of a Denny’s. He actually cuddled up to a flag at a conservative conference in 2020 and mouthed, “I love you, baby.”

He’s yuuuuge on the flag, but puny on what it stands for.

Serve your country in the military? Uh … no.

Obey the law? No, no, 34 times no.

Free speech? Big no. Trump says that if reelected he would retaliate against media “criminally or civilly.”

But what really makes me eat bees is that Trumpers aren’t just kidnapping the flag — they’re abusing it, too. MAGAs........

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