The upside-down American flag goes mainstream as a form of right-wing protest

After former President Donald Trump’s historic felony conviction, many of his supporters protested the verdict by posting images of an American flag flipped upside down on social media.

A Manhattan jury on Thursday found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in order to influence the 2016 presidential election. Soon after the verdict was read, right-wing politicians and pundits including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Fox News contributor Guy Benson and far-right conspiracy theorist Ali Alexander shared images of an inverted American flag on social media. Alexander, organizer of the “Stop the Steal” rally that pushed false claims about the 2020 election, posted the upside-down flag on Telegram with the message: “No one is coming to save us. We must.”

The phrases “RIP America” and “Civil War," which began trending on the social media platform X, were also seen alongside flipped flags and messages of outrage at the verdict.

A report from The New York Times last month revealed that an upside-down American flag flew outside the Virginia home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in January 2021. At that time, the flag had emerged as an anti-Biden protest symbol synonymous with the false claim that the election had been stolen from Trump. Earlier that month, rioters at the siege on the U.S. Capitol carried the same flags. Justice Alito has said his wife is responsible for controversial flags flying outside their homes.

“When you have a Supreme Court justice or his family use it as a symbol of America being in distress, you know it's gone mainstream,” said Ken Paulson, director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

The upside-down American flag, originally an apolitical symbol used by