Jim Antle, the Washington Examiner magazine’s executive editor, brings to life the pages of the magazine in the show Inside Scoop. Each episode features exclusive insight from the article authors and expert analysis.
This week, Antle gives his take on Peter Tonguette’s article on whether Americans are minding their manners anymore. If not, is this contributing to a decline in our culture? We’re a much more casual country than we used to be. We dress more casually. We swear more frequently. Political slogans and signs at protests often feature vulgarity and anger. There is something to be said that, as a result of all of this anger, our society is less harmonious.
“Now that doesn’t necessarily mean everybody has to be following the Emily Post etiquette book in every setting,” Antle said. “But there is something that is lost when people no longer feel the need to dress up, even for events like church, jury duty, and being on television. There are things that are lost when we speak to each other in ways that don’t convey a certain mutual respect.”
Next on the episode, Antle is joined by Christopher J. Scalia, who is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and author of 13 Novels Conservatives Will Love (but Probably Haven’t Read). He is also the son of former Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The duo discusses Scalia’s article in the magazine on President Donald Trump’s executive order to make burning the U.S. flag a crime.
Trump’s goal is not new. In 2016, shortly after he won his first presidential election, he wrote that people who burn flags should be arrested and lose their citizenship.
“The executive order he issued on Aug. 25 is kind of a fulfillment of that very, very early expression, that desire he had to punish people for burning the flag,” Scalia said. “He said that this executive order would ensure that flag burners are fined and get a year in jail. End of story. The actual executive order is much more cautious.”
“What happens when you burn a flag is the area goes crazy,” Trump said in the Oval Office during the signing ceremony. “When you burn the American flag, it incites riots at levels that we’ve never seen before.”
“I don’t know what examples he’s talking about of incredible violence caused by flag burning,” Scalia said. “I think we have seen instances of flag burning by the Hamas supporters, for example. But those acts have not caused the riots. The riots were already going on, and they have not led to great instances of violence, either.”
While in the Oval Office, Trump complained about the Supreme Court decision protecting flag burning. In 1989, the case of Texas v. Johnson was decided after Gregory Lee Johnson burned the U.S. flag outside the Republican National Convention in Dallas. It was protected constitutionally by the First Amendment.
“Through a very sad court, I guess it was a 5-4 decision,” Trump said. “They called it freedom of speech. But there’s another reason, which is perhaps much more important. It’s called death.”
Scalia said, “When my father was on the court, he was really the only originalist. Now the majority is originalist. So if all of those originalists take my father’s view of the First Amendment and how flag burning applies to it, then I don’t think this would have a shot at the Supreme Court. My hunch is that if it did come to the Supreme Court again in similar circumstances, Texas v. Johnson would not be overturned.”
Criminalizing flag burning is one of many executive orders Trump has issued this term, but the practice is far from new. Presidents have made unilateral decisions to push their agendas since George Washington.
Jay Cost’s article outlines how Trump, like his predecessors over the last 100 years, has used the inherent power of the presidency to expand executive power to accomplish his policy goals in the face of legislative gridlock.
The show wraps up with Antle interviewing Graham Hillard on how Cracker Barrel’s logo ordeal explains American politics. When companies owned by liberals realize their consumer base skews Republican, male, or white, they want to change their target market.
“If you’re Bud Light, if you’re Walmart, if you’re Cracker Barrel, you just cannot just cheese off your customer base, right?” Hillard said.
Hillard said he hopes these turn into cautionary tales for companies with more conservative customer bases to be more reluctant to pursue woke ideologies and to work toward the de-politicization of daily life. If these legacy companies start aggravating their existing customers, the market has alternatives.
“I think if Cracker Barrel had said, ‘We’re just gonna keep the stores the same, keep the logo the same, but we’re changing our menu. We’ve decided that gravy is bad for you all,’” Hillard said. “That’s not quite ideological, but I think that would have annoyed people just the same.”
“Yeah, a gravy-free, vegan menu at Cracker Barrel,” Antle quipped.
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“I just can’t imagine actual vegans would rush to Cracker Barrel to eat from that menu because they have their existing establishments,” Hillard said. “A vegan, gravy-free Cracker Barrel, just like a corporate minimalist Cracker Barrel, is going to find itself with no customers, rather than new and better customers.”
Tune in each week at washingtonexaminer.com and across all our social media platforms to go behind the headlines in the Washington Examiner’s new show, Inside Scoop.