Don't put on a red hat, Mama.

Rich Lowry, editor of the National Review, writes a column for the Aberdeen American News.  He writes one in defense of the MAGA hat.  He correctly identifies the fury directed at the Covington High School boys who taunted Nathan Phillips as a reaction to their wearing of MAGA hats.  That is true.  Although many people focused on what appeared to be an insolent leer on the face of one of the boys, the real objection was to the fact that his schoolmates around him who taunted and derided the Native American drummer were nearly all clad in red or white Trump MAGA hats.

Lowry remarks that to many people, progressives mainly, the MAGA hats brand the wearers as racist bigots and goons.  He says, that is an "uncharitable view of their fellow citizens, who voted by the tens of millions for the guy who invented the red cap."

Lowry betrays  some inane adulation in his words.  Printing a the campaign slogan "Make America Great Again" on a hat is hardly an act of invention.  It is an inherent implication that America was somehow diminished because its previous president was black.  Trump has  accrued a long list of documented slights and insults against  people of color.  

One recent article says the wearing of a MAGA hat is a declaration of identity.  That is partially true, but it doesn't fully explain that the wearing of the hat is an endorsement of Donald Trump.  It declares that the wearer supports what Donald Trump says and does.  And what Trump does is deny the freedom, equality, and justice that are the goals of our

democracy.  But he also refutes the standards of decency that define an honest and just society.  He defrauds, defames, and lies incessantly.  His business resume reads like a criminal record.  He is possessed by malice.  Wearing one of his hats is a declaration of approval and support of all the insidious schemes that make up the Trump biography.  The hat is a declaration that its wearer is a disciple of Trump, and therefore an enemy of decency.

The Covington school boys ostensibly came to Washington, D.C., to participate in an anti-abortion march.  Why were so many wearing MAGA hats?  Why not clothing that identified their school?  Why this apparently coordinated effort display political support for Trump?  What exactly was the purpose of all those MAGA hats?  

When the Nazi flag is displayed, it tells us that the person who displayed it is for the things we fought against in the Second World War.  It is an endorsement of Hitler.  Therefore, it is an endorsement of the Holocaust, of genocide, white supremacy, dictatorship, and all the evil that attends those things.  It seems preposterous that they might have been individual choices.

Wearing a MAGA hat sends the same kind of message as the display of the Nazi flag.  That message is that the wearer is declaring that he/she believes in the words and deeds of Trump and will act accordingly.   A San Francisco chef has banned MAGA hat wearers from his restaurant for those reasons:  " if you come to my restaurant wearing a MAGA cap, you aren’t getting served, same as if you come in wearing a swastika, white hood, or any other symbol of intolerance and hate.  MAGA hats are like white hoods except stupider because you can see exactly who is wearing them.”

In America, we do not ban the display of the Nazi flag as a bit of political speech.  Some countries, such as France, do.  In the USA, banning it would conflict with the First Amendment.  There are those who think that freedom of speech lends an endorsement to anything they might believe or say.  They have difficulty in understanding that people also have the right to make intellectual and moral judgements on the basis of what others say and do.  And they have the right not to be bothered with speech that violates standards of truthfulness and intelligence.  That's why college students have the right to ban the deranged and corrupted from using their campus forums to spread malice.  They have the right to insist that participants in their forums meet standards of integrity and competence.

When those very young men from Covington donned hats that convey messages of malicious bigotry as part of their demonstration, people have every right to question why they were sending such a message.  Their appearance and behavior was disturbingly redolent of Nazi youth groups.  No one has as yet answered the question of why they were there demonstrating as they did.