Former President Jimmy Carter died on December 29, so according to traditional protocol, U.S. flags are to fly at half-mast until sunset on Tuesday, January 28, 2025, in his honor. This means that the flags will be signifying national sorrow on January 20, when Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States when the nation, also according to tradition, is supposed to embrace our peaceful transfer of power, our unique system of government, the glorious history of the United States of America, and the hope that should accompany each new Chief Executive into the office where Washington, Lincoln and the rest served our nation.
I’m sure the Axis news media will engage in an orgy of smug satisfaction at the symbolism of the flags signifying mourning upon the return to power of Donald J. Trump. I am similarly certain the the Trump Deranged will similarly puff up their little chests with pride at the condign justice the circumstances have imposed on the MAGA celebrants. Meanwhile, Trump is ticked-off and, being Trump, unable to restrain himself from saying so. On Truth Social, his now superfluous social media platform created when the censors at Twitter silenced his account, the President-Elect whined,
The Democrats are all “giddy” about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at “half mast” during my Inauguration. They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves. Look at what they’ve done to our once GREAT America over the past four years – It’s a total mess! In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast. Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it. Let’s see how it plays out. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
If Trump didn’t have such a flat learning curve, he could have turned this obvious pettiness by President Biden and the bitter Democrats to his advantage but, no, of course not. Now the Axis media is full of headlines like Salon’s “They don’t love our country”: Trump rages over half-mast flags for Carter.” Biden, meanwhile, or whoever is calling the shots for him while he loses IQ points like a leaky bucket loses water, told paid liar Karine Jean-Pierre to inform the press that the White House won’t reconsider the half-mast decree continuing during the inauguration so there, nyaa, nyaa, nyaa!
The flag stunt has to be considered in the context of all the other metaphorical middle fingers the Biden White House is flashing at Trump, perhaps the most blatant of which is awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to Liz Cheney for running the rigged January 6 House Committee investigation of the 2021 riot at the Capitol, even though her committee was unethical, broke laws, violated the “democratic norms” Democrats give lip-service to and didn’t work anyway.
So much for Biden’s declaration four years ago that he was dedicated to being a unifying, never-divisive presence in the White House. To be fair, he may not remember that far back. Everything about his lame-duck period as President has been marked by pettiness and obstruction except for being willing to have his successor meet with him in the White House formally and cordially, and even that had an element of “See, jerk? This is how you’re supposed to behave as President when you lose an election!” to it.
If Biden (and his puppeteers and party) really wanted to dial back the hyper-partisanship—they don’t—they would have announced that the flags will fly at full mast on Inaugeration Day in honor of the nation and Constitution the late President Carter served and loved, to symbolize our remarkable…yada yada yada. If Carter’s family were not as petty as Jimmy was, it would publicly request that Biden make that call. If Trump wasn’t as petty as all of them, he would shrug this pathetic taunting off and say, “Hey, it’s fine: President Carter has his full 30 days of half-mast flags coming to him because he was President; we have more important matters to think about than how far up the mast the flags are. ” He’s being baited, and it is working, because our incoming President lacks self-control even when he has to know that he’s doing exactly what his foes want him do.
Ethics Alarms 
What a sad collection of leaders we have among us…a President-to-be who whines about the tradition of half-mast flags; media which uses that tradition to taunt a person they detest; or a current President who degrades the Medal of Freedom by awarding it to George Soros and Hillary Clinton. Welcome to Twilight Zone 2025. Can the bar for awareness and excellence go any lower?
God, I hope not….
so simple to cut this Gordian knot. Raise and lower to half staff in the morning. Raise it to full as part of the Inauguration, Trump closes his address with some patriotic comment about America and the flags go back to half staff. We show unity between our divided citizens and everyone can tell whatever story their bias requires. That would require adults in the roo…..
Just yesterday, seeing a flag at half mast, I couldn’t help thinking flags will NOT be lowered in recognition of Trump’s death.
Because I look at everything through a Catholic lens, I’m a little bemused by this, and because there’s always consternation in Catholic circles when we have conflicting liturgical practices landing on the same day. What happens if St. Patrick’s Day (which is usually during Lent) falls on a Friday (which is obligatorily meatless, and more importantly, corned-beef-less during Lent)? What if the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (a holy day of obligation, December 8th), falls on a Sunday?
If anyone is at all interested, there is a listing of priorities the Catholic Church publishes that clarifies what happens when two different liturgical practices conflict. At the top of the list is the Easter Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday). Next in place are Christmas, Epiphany, Ascension, Pentecost; Sundays of Advent, Lent, and the Season of Easter; Ash Wednesday; Weekdays of Holy Week, and Days within the Octave of Easter. In third place are Solemnities of the Lord, the Blessed Virgin Mary, listed saints, and All Soul’s Day. There are an additional 10 rankings after this.
So, if we look at the Immaculate Conception, we see that it would be in the 3rd rank, but the Sundays of Advent are in the second rank, and so the Sunday of Advent would take priority over the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception. (However, there is an additional instruction for solemnities: they are transferred to the nearest available day if a conflict arises, and the nearest day is one that does not have a rank 1 through 8.)
In the case of St. Patrick’s Day, which is classified as a memorial, it stands at rank 10. The weekdays of Lent are rank 9, so sadly, St. Patrick’s Day loses out. Technically it loses out whenever March 17th is in Lent, which is always, but certainly the abstaining from meat if St. Patrick’s Day lands on a Friday of Lent is obligatory. But wait! There is some small exception! If St. Patrick is the patron of a church (like the parish I grew up attending in Casper, WY), that elevates his feastday to a rank 8 for that particular church, which then jumps it up over the days of Lent, so that parish can dispense with the abstinence!
All of this is a long-winded way of saying there should be a set of instructions for flying flags at half-mast, so that if there are days of conflicting practices, one merely has to refer to the rubrics to know which event takes precedence. I would place the Inauguration of a President as a higher priority than the death of a former president, but even if we decided the other way, one would merely have to point to the rubrics, and the unhappy party would have no choice but to accept that his preference loses out.
Considering how complicated and regimented the US Flag Code already is, I’m surprised it doesn’t already have something like this.
–Dwayne
Sort of like how the Electoral College takes priority over the popular vote.