On a recent episode of “Real Time” during the “New Rules” segment of the show, Bill Maher appeared to take exception to the display of the Mexican flag during the various demonstrations that occurred in Los Angeles and other cities in February.
In case you have any trouble finding the particular episode I’m referencing just look for the one with Kid Rock on it. It’s the episode right after the one featuring Rep. Byron Donalds, Trump’s pick for Florida governor.
Anyway, at one point in the show’s closing segment, Maher launched into what can only be described as a sanctimonious reprimand of the demonstrators waving Mexican flags during these protests for what he perceived as a lack of deference and gratitude. As Maher condescendingly observed, “If you are an undocumented alien protesting for your right to stay in America, have children that are automatically American, and eventually become an American, maybe you don’t wave a great big Mexican flag […].”
What Maher seems to not understand, however, is that the protestors brandishing the Mexican flag during these demonstrations were, in all likelihood, not some group of intrepid undocumented Mexican immigrants, but rather politically activated Mexican Americans directly and courageously confronting the anti-Mexican sentiment at the core of Trumpism.
It’s worth mentioning, just to provide some additional perspective, that not everyone shares Maher’s unfavorable view of these particular protestors. Los Angeles Times columnist, Gustavo Arellano, for example, has referred to the display of the Mexican flag that often occurs during these types of protests as ”good trouble — a sign for the brave to rally together and stand tall against a commander in chief who understands nothing but chaos.” Perhaps more importantly, he has also acknowledged the larger value of the “strident activism” that often accompanies these displays, noting that the demonstrators who waved the Mexican flag during the immigration rallies of 2006 “fundamentally transformed California politics for the next generation” and ultimately “turned the state blue.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, Maher’s criticism is actually strikingly reminiscent of the conservative reaction to the massive immigration rallies that occurred in 2006 in cities throughout the United States. Maher, who is fond of describing himself as an “old fashioned liberal,” was simply peddling a variation of the same old tired condemnation that Republicans have been throwing at Mexican American political activists for decades.
During the 2006 protests, for example, syndicated columnist and Fox News contributor, Robert Novak, claimed that “brandishing the Mexican flag” in particular signaled a “divided loyalty to a foreign power.” Bill O’Reilly cited the display of the Mexican flag during the rallies as evidence of an incipient “race war,” while Patrick Buchanan, in one of the more extreme and bizarre manifestations of this thinking, discerned a vast and nefarious plot to reconquer the Southwestern United States in the “sea of Mexican flags” he observed during the rallies.
During his first presidential campaign, Trump struck a similarly hostile tone towards Mexican American activists brandishing the Mexican flag at a particularly heated anti-Trump protest in downtown Albuquerque in May of 2016. Never one to be encumbered with analysis, Trump simply dismissed these demonstrators as “thugs” and “criminals.” Fox News quickly followed suit with its own slur referring to a group of Mexican American protestors who burned a Trump flag as “anti-Trump goons-waving the Mexican flag.”
Of course, what attacks of this nature have made unmistakably clear by this point is that Mexican Americans are held to a categorically different standard when it comes to appraising their loyalty to the United States. According to the rigidly simple binary logic typically deployed against Mexican Americans, any interest in or active support of Mexico by a Mexican American is automatically characterized as an act of disloyalty, ingratitude, and hostility towards the United States.
Other American ethnic groups, however, are free to maintain and promote various forms of cultural, political, and economic connections with their ancestral countries of origin with complete impunity. There’s a multitude of Jewish American organizations, to cite some examples that Maher is likely to recognize, that promote cultural and political connections to the state of Israel. There’s the American Jewish Congress, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and the American Jewish League for Israel, to name just a few, and, trust me, there are many, many more.
And, in case anybody was wondering what these organizations are all about, the stated objective of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, among other things, is “to strengthen, protect and promote the U.S.-Israel relationship in ways that enhance the security of the United States and Israel.” Similarly, the American Jewish League for Israel, an independent Zionist membership organization, is dedicated to, among other things, strengthening “the ties that bind Jews in the United States to Jews in Israel.”
To offer a more pertinent observation, Jewish Americans have also frequently brandished Israeli flags in their ongoing efforts to oppose groups they deem critical of Israeli policies or to push back against groups they feel are targeting Jewish Americans. Most recently, the Israeli flag was on full display during the series of heated clashes that occurred between Jewish diasporic groups like the Israeli American Council and pro-Palestinian protesters at U.C.L.A. and other college campuses.
To date, I am unaware of any significant backlash from Maher against these Jewish American activists for brandishing the flag of Israel during these protests. In fact, on the latest episode of “Real Time,” Maher applauded Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman, an ostensible Democrat and early and eager capitulant to Trump, for waving an Israeli flag at protestors calling for a cease-fire in Gaza outside Fetterman’s home in Pennsylvania.
Of course, it wasn’t exactly the first time Fetterman has brandished the Israeli flag. There’s footage of the Trump-friendly, hoodie-wearing senator waving a small Israeli flag as he appeared to mock demonstrators getting arrested outside the U.S. Capitol in late 2023.
Please, don’t get me wrong though. I am not necessarily faulting Fetterman or others for brandishing the Israeli flag, and I certainly wouldn’t want anyone getting the impression that I am running with the “Genocide Joe” crowd. Although I have to admit, I am puzzled at times by how those who claim to be so opposed to antisemitism are so willing to accommodate all of the antisemitism baked into Trumpism.
To be absolutely clear though, what I am ultimately objecting to is the double standard that Mexican Americans are regularly subjected to whenever they dare to engage in similar expressions of solidarity with Mexico.
You don’t need to embrace all of the objectives of the diasporic Jewish groups involved in these protests to recognize and respect their right to defiantly wave the Israeli flag in the face of displays of antisemitism or hostility to Israel.
Mexican Americans are simply asking that the same respect be extended when we assert our right to defiantly wave the Mexican flag in the face of the anti-Mexican sentiment that has fueled Trumpism for close to a decade.
And, while I may not agree with every position these Jewish diasporic organizations espouse, I certainly applaud the larger rationale behind their formation. Maybe I’m even a little envious of these groups. Lamentably, the Mexican American community has no analogous organizations that even remotely approximate the cohesion, commitment, and efficacy of these organizations.
