California’s state flag is a powerful symbol of resistance and unity in the face of a cruel, lawless presidential administration. Across California, people have been starting to take down their U.S. flags and fly the California flag instead.
What if Californians want our elected local governments to do the same thing? Do California cities have to fly the U.S. flag?
The short answer: most California cities do. Probably. But nothing says they have to fly it right-side up!
Why do flags even matter?
I don’t know if you remember this guy, but when he became Caifornia’s governor in 2019, during the heart of the first Trump administration, he made a point of giving his inauguration speech with nothing but California flags in the background. Not a single American flag in sight!
What a powerful symbol to back his promise of a “progressive, principled California“! “It is up to us to renew the California dream for a new generation. And now more than ever, it is up to us to defend it,” he said. “But there is an administration in Washington clearly hostile to California’s values and California’s interests.”
Okay, it’s possible this gesture never meant that much to a man who now seeks on-air advice with authoritarians and Nazi sympathizers. But it meant a lot to ordinary Californians! On the one side, there was the Trump administration, cruel and anti-democratic. And on the other was—us! Pro-immigrant, pro-rule-of-law. And as anyone who’s ever voted in a California election knows, we love the heck out of democracy. Lots of places in the world vote, but California ballots are truly next level.
Why at a time when the second Trump administration is targeting law-abiding California immigrants, threatening to slash Medicaid, and openly defying court orders, should Californians even care about flags? Two reasons:
First, the flags we fly remind us who’s in charge. California’s state and local governments are not and have never been a subsidary of the federal government. We’ve always had our own sovereignty. Sure, the federal government can try to manipulate us by withholding federal funds, but even that has limits. And the federal government doesn’t even have its own source of funds; in most years, every federal dollar they spend on us comes directly from taxes we pay to them! If you want to help California immigrants, taking down the U.S. flag from local government offices makes it a lot more clear that we’re not in league with the border patrol and ICE!
Second, it’s something we can organize around at the local level. Most grassroots movements start local and work their way up, but for the California independence movement, that’s tricky. California independence is primarily about the relationship between our state and the federal government, and there’s not all that much to do at the local level. Changing anything in the state legislature is hard; to get things done you have to travel to Sacramento, and most legislators have already decided on their “package” of bills by late January. Whereas if you want to lobby your local government, you can just show up at a city council meeting and speak! Instead of organizing over email and Zoom, it’s a chance to meet your neighbors!
