I want to make the argument here as much as I made it in the episode:

How is it that people who still waved the flag of the Confederacy get to lay claim on being the "real" Americans. It's not that I have any regard for blind patriotism and nationalism that have been used as a tool of manipulation for generations in service of the ruling elite.

No. I'm thinking about how utterly indoctrinated every single American is. Whether we can admit it or not, we have an emotional connection to the "Red, White, and Blue." We've been propagandized with "Americana" since the first day our parents dressed us in our Fourth of July onesies.

And it is because of that, I feel we must "capture the flag." Conservatives and the Ruling Elite (of both parties) have decidedly labeled anything to Left of Michael Bloomberg as "foreign" and "seditious," when, in fact, the ruling elite have used the brute force of the police state and propaganda to maintain it's illegitimate hold on political and economic power in this country.
In other words, American democracy has been seized by a regime that understood that they could extract endless profits out of the American economy and keep the masses in check with the police state and propaganda.

And that is why conservatives can wave the treasonous Confederate flag and no one ever questions their patriotism.

The Left needs to capture the flag. Not out of any deference to the American propaganda that has been used to expand imperialism abroad and the police state domestically. But for two reasons:

1. If we are ever to reach the masses -- the millions of people who have, like you, been indoctrinated, then we need them to see that the Leftist revolutionaries in the streets right now are upholding the truest spirit of the Constitution -- OUR RIGHT TO REBEL AGAINST ANY GOVERNMENT THAT IS DESTRUCTIVE OF THE ENDS OF LIFE, LIBERTY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. The average American can clearly see that what Trump is doing is the LEAST democratic thing and the LEAST American.

2. The history of America has always been made better by the efforts of Leftists. So we have the historical validity necessary to show that we, not this ruling regime, are the real heirs of America. And, therefore, we have the right to shape this country into something that isn't a police state and something that is not imperialist.

Now go become a patron. 😀

- Ben