The Pine Tree Flag is popping up on the desks of RI Senators. What does it mean?
"Why are four out of five Republican Senators in the Rhode Island Senate flying these flags on their desks?"
To start, let's briefly review the history of the “An Appeal to Heaven” flag, often called the Pine Tree Flag. What began as an ordinary Revolutionary War flag, used by a squadron of six schooners commissioned under then-General George Washington in 1775, has been adopted and repurposed by far-right Christian Nationalists. The words “An Appeal to Heaven,” is taken from a quote by philosopher John Locke, written in defense of the right to revolution. The flag was seen at the failed January 6th Insurrection and most recently outside the vacation home of United States Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in 2023.
Four such flags now decorate the desks of Republican Senators in the Rhode Island Senate. Senators Jessica de la Cruz (Republican, District 23, Burrillville, Glocester), Gordon Rogers (Republican, District 21, Coventry, Foster, Scituate, West Greenwich), Elaine Morgan (Republican, District 34, Charlestown, Exeter, Hopkinton, Richmond, West Greenwich), and Anthony Deluca II (Republican, District 29, Warwick) all have them on their desks. The only Republican member of the Senate not sporting such a flag is Thomas Paolino (District 17, Lincoln).
The end of the session at the Rhode Island General Assembly being a hectic time, none of the Senators, nor Chief of Staff Brandon Bell, responded to my inquiry about the flag, but I did find Senator Rogers in the hallway of the State House.
Senator Rogers: I don't see why there's a controversy over flags. We have flags on our desks all the time. In today's society, we start tearing down statues and everything else. They try and rewrite the history of what flags are. That one was commissioned by George Washington for the first fleet. It's important to put it up there so people like you ask questions and then we can get out there what the flag stands for at this time when there are such misconceptions - with Alito and everything else, the meaning of the flag gets lost.
Steve Ahlquist: That, and also January 6th,
Senator Rogers: The meaning gets lost. I mean, you can't rewrite what the flag originally stood for. If everybody tries to rewrite the flag based on modern history, it gets lost. I'm glad you asked me because it reiterates what that flag stands for and where it originally came from.
Steve Ahlquist: Is it being displayed now by four members of the Senate because of the present political situation? Is it about Stop the Steal?
Senator Rogers: It has nothing to do with that. It's really to say, "Hey, why are you flying it on your desk?" It's to bring back what the flag stands for, which is why we're here. It's just to say, "Ask me a question." What that stands for can't be lost. I don't like it when anybody steals any flag and somebody else labels it January 6th or something. That's wrong. So we fly it, you ask the questions, and that gets out what that flag stands for. It's about George Washington...
Steve Ahlquist: I know the history of it. It's a John Locke quote about the right to revolution. But I've also read stuff that puts it in a different context and that's why I'm asking.
Senator Rogers: And again, it's just a statement. Ask about the flag, this is what it stands for, please don't lose that. Because that's the historical battle. In the past few years, we've seen statutes coming down. We haven't gained anything. We've just lost the ability to ask, "Hey, why is that statute there? What does it stand for? Where did it originate from?"
"Well, there was a civil war. It was the North and the South and these are statutes of men who fought on both sides. You walk through this building there are portraits of men who fought on our side. I know they're not taking them down, so it's important to keep it in the forefront, ask the questions, and circle it back to what it really stands for.
Dr. Matthew D. Taylor is a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies and an expert on the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) - an extreme, white-nationalist form of Christianity that was instrumental in the insurrection that took place in Washington D.C. on January 6, 2021.
“While the Appeal to Heaven flag is rooted in American history, it has taken on a whole raft of new connotations in the past decade,” writes Dr. Taylor at The Bulwark. “And in that timespan, it has also grown far more popular than it has been since it was first flown. These flags have proliferated in public buildings and government offices not as a celebration of American independence, but as a coded endorsement of an ongoing Christian nationalist crusade, hidden in plain sight.”
While the history of NAR and its use of the Pine Tree flag can be complicated, and I would recommend reading Dr. Taylor's essay in full, the NAR and the broader movement the Pine Tree flag represents are overtly anti-democratic and Christian Nationalist - but you won't hear that said out loud very often by the people flying it. They will almost always couch their defense of the flag in “secular and historical terms.”
“The National Association of Christian Lawmakers (NACL) is leading one campaign to fly the flag over government buildings,” writes Dr. Taylor. “The energy for that initiative … publicly makes its case for the flag in purely secular and historical terms…
“The Appeal to Heaven flag has come out of the nation’s dusty archive to be raised over one of the most energetic (and dangerous) Christian movements in recent American political history. At this point, it has been linked to some of the most powerful figures in each of our three branches of government: the former president, the speaker of the House of Representatives, and, finally, a Supreme Court justice...
“Should Trump win the White House again this fall and begin to enact Project 2025, it may no longer be necessary for Christian nationalist hardliners in positions of power to disguise their true ideological commitments. Their vehement appeal to an unaccountable power will have finally come to fruition.”
So interesting that now they all are interested in this very particular flag. Not in years past, but somehow, all of the sudden. Lock-step GOP intent on creating a theocracy and destroying democracy in the process.
I consider all of them traitors to the constitution. Especially ironic in the state founded by Roger Williams on religious freedom that these zealots are corrupting that freedom to turn it into a Christian entity.
Thanks for identifying the lying fascists