What is the significance of the American flag hung upside down?

It is a symbol that, in recent times, is often used by Trump devotees but its meaning goes further. What does an American flag deliberately hung upside down mean?

As reported by The New York Times, placing the flag upside down was a method used on American ships to warn that they were suffering from very serious difficulties, such as fire, imminent sinking, etc.

Over the years this alarm signal was adopted as a symbol of protest, a way to denounce the collapse of the United States.

The upside-down flag has been seen in demonstrations for civil rights, against war or, as in the image, in protests against the government's actions when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005.

Today, those who use the inverted flag (in protests or placed in their garden) are Trump supporters who point out that the 2020 elections were won by Joe Biden by cheating.

Along these lines, The New York Times revealed that Samuel Alito, an influential and very conservative Supreme Court judge, had hung an inverted American flag in his yard at home.

The designated Supreme Court justice responded to The New York Times: “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs,” he wrote to the newspaper, referring to his wife, Martha-Ann Alito.

The curious thing is that images like this can be found, in which protesters place the United States flag upside down in a 2017 protest against Trump.

In the United States (as in many other countries) the flag is something almost sacred but, in this case, the use of the symbol is understood as an element of protest.

But whether it was used against the Vietnam War, in defence of the civil rights of racial minorities or by Trump supporters, the message sent by the American flag is very harsh. It seeks to express that the country is in serious danger, in a state of chaos, at a critical moment.

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