Democrats’ newest approach to win back voters is a fresh embrace of the nation’s oldest symbol.
Two days ahead of Flag Day, when President Donald Trump’s military parade will run through the streets of Washington, Democratic Reps. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) and Chris Deluzio (D-Pa.) fanned out Thursday afternoon to give a gift to their colleagues to unite them.
It was a 4-inch-by-6-inch American flag, which they passed out at almost the exact moment, unbeknownst to them, that Sen. Alex Padilla was getting forcibly removed and handcuffed at a Homeland Security press conference in Los Angeles — an act House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries would later call “unpatriotic.”
The flags, made in Deluzio’s Pennsylvania, came with a message in an accompanying dear colleague letter written by Ryan, a West Point grad who served two tours in Iraq, and Deluzio, a U.S. Navy officer who did three deployments there. They have joined forces to become co-chairs of the first-ever, 18-member Democratic Veterans Caucus, formed just three days ago.
“Patriotism does not belong to one party,” the letter read. “The flag, and the values it stands for, belong to every single American.”
As Democrats look for a message to rebut the MAGA right, they are looking within their own ranks for a credible message against the overreach of those holding power.
“The timing is very apt, because we’ve now had a senator handcuffed; we’ve had one of my House colleagues charged and now indicted; we’ve had not just the National Guard federalized, but active duty troops deployed against U.S. citizens, and increasingly, Trump, who really is the Republican Party now, their definition of patriotism, is, do you support Trump and MAGA?” Ryan told POLITICO. “And if you don’t, then you’re not patriotic.”
Democrats see the military display taking place in Washington on the Army’s 250th birthday — which also happens to coincide with President Donald Trump’s 78th birthday — as emblematic of a president who puts himself above the country. In his speech this week, even California Gov. Gavin Newsom framed his criticism of Trump in patriotic terms, saying he’s “ordering our American heroes, the United States military, and forcing them to put on a vulgar display to celebrate his birthday, just as other failed dictators have done in the past.”
It’s a message that a beleaguered party hopes resonates in the 90 percent of counties that shifted to Republicans last November. Or, as Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) put it earlier this year, it’s time for Democrats to “fucking retake the flag.”
Ahead of Trump’s parade, outside groups like VoteVets are rallying former servicemembers to make a not-so-subtle contrast. Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy officer, is organizing fellow veterans online to “call out how Trump is putting his ego first while he fires veterans from federal jobs and guts the VA.” Others who also served in the armed forces, like JoAnna Mendoza who is running to challenge Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, plan to be involved in the pushback.
“Patriotism is not something the Democratic Party should concede, because patriotism is not something the Republican Party created,” Moore said in an interview.
Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on Instagram Thursday said “any salute to the flag or patriotism or talk of American greatness is completely hollow if you do not respect the freedoms that that flag represents.”
In Iowa last month at a town hall hosted by the Democratic political action committee VoteVets, Buttigieg closed his opening remarks with an extended meditation on the flag to his three-year-old daughter. The former Navy Reserve intelligence officer who deployed to Afghanistan for seven months extolled “the values that flag represents, the story, the incredibly rich and inspiring — and yes, very, complicated story, of everything that has happened under that flag and in the name of that flag.”
And it comes at a time when the party’s brightest stars include a number of veterans — including some poised to enter governor’s mansions and help Democrats retake the House.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, her party’s gubernatorial nominee in New Jersey, is a former Navy helicopter pilot.
Her candidacy has inspired a group of female veterans running for Congress in 2026, who hope to replicate the success of the 2018 wave by running moderates with national security experience.
And like Buttigieg, other possible 2028 presidential contenders are leaning into powerful national symbols: Kelly is also a former astronaut. And there is Reuben Gallego, a Marine combat veteran who served in Iraq.
In attempting to reclaim the flag from its right-coded fixture at the moment, Democrats face no easy task: One study found that a single exposure to the American flag shifts voter sentiment to the right for up to eight months after.
Major General (Ret.) Paul Eaton, a senior adviser to VoteVets, the PAC that sponsored Buttigieg’s town hall last month, said messaging that has been so successful on the right to pigeonhole the other party [as] less than patriotic.”
Mendoza, a retired US Marine, says she finds it “extremely frustrating” when Republicans claim to be the true party of patriots. Medoza said she deliberately chose her campaign colors to be red, white and blue to make a point that “they don’t own it, and we have to take it back.”
“The Republican Party does not own this country, they don’t own the American flag,” she said. “It belongs to the people.”
Democrats have spent years battling perceptions that they are less patriotic — and reversing that image could take just as long.
But “a key part of the way out of the moment we’re in will be military veterans who can help bridge the divide,” Ryan said. “That’s why I think this reassertion of a constructive, unifying patriotism is absolutely just essential right now.”
