Glad to see this thread, I’ve been considering bringing this question up as well.
I have the flag on my wall, I’ve always had a serious love for it. I used to wear a cap with the snake all the time, it is a little sad that I wouldn’t do that anymore…but the flag on the wall stays!
I loved the flag because I’m just a history buff and it is the symbol that most reminds me of the revolutionary period. I never wore it to make a political statement, because frankly I find it silly and a little arrogant to assume that our political struggles are in any way the same as those a few centuries ago. You can’t just adopt the symbols of heroes from a much different time in a drastically different situation and squeeze them into whatever context is convenient for you without just being intellectually lazy.
Apparently conservatives disagree, they think that their perspective gains moral strength if they pretend that we are in the midst of the sequel to the Revolutionary War despite the political situation being nothing even comparable. They of course are the heroes. And if you can just say that you are the hero like those guys from centuries ago, the next logical step is that everyone else is the villain (see the Nazi accusations at town hall meetings). Nothing actually gets discussed or solved, all we’ve done it cast roles for ourselves according to stories that we know have much clearer defined good and evil. Why fashion yourself an opponent of the political party in power when you can just pretend that you are a noble champion of freedom struggling against something far bigger and more dramatic while your founding fathers gaze down in approval?
So this is why it really grinds my gears. Basically they took my fun little historic symbol. How would they feel I took one of theirs…like…if I replaced the rainbow flag of gay rights with the Nascar logo or something? I miss the days when Sam Seaborne could work the Gadsden in style.