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Up until fairly recently, the “Appeal to Heaven” flag was a relatively obscure symbol, at least in contemporary times, though as a New York Times report recently noted, it’s become “a symbol of support for former President Donald J. Trump, for a religious strand of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign and for a push to remake American government in Christian terms.”
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick added, “That flag is not merely another January 6 signifier but also rooted in John Locke’s ‘appeal to heaven,’ meaning ‘a responsibility to rebel, even use violence, to overthrow unjust rule.’”
With this in mind, it was rather unsettling when the public learned that the Appeal to Heaven flag, also known as the Pine Tree flag, was hoisted above Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s vacation home in New Jersey last year.
This week, the same symbol became politically relevant anew, thanks to the latest reporting from NOTUS’s Haley Byrd Wilt.
Rep. Jim Banks — a Republican who is seeking a Senate seat in Indiana this year — isn’t saying whether he opposes armed rebellion against the American government. “I don’t take you seriously enough to answer your question,” Banks told NOTUS on Tuesday when asked, for the fourth time in person, if he opposes violent revolution against the United States.
Let’s back up and review how we arrived at this point.
Hours after a jury convicted Trump of 34 felonies, Banks published an image — without text or a caption — of the Appeal to Heaven flag to his social media platform. (As of this morning, it remains the Indiana Republican’s pinned tweet, suggesting he places special significance on the symbol.)
This led NOTUS to note that some commenters were speculating the image meant that the GOP congressman “might view what was happening to Trump as dire enough to warrant some new kind of American revolution.”
Banks has been given a variety of opportunities to reject the idea of armed rebellion. He’s chosen not to take advantage of those opportunities.
“I’ll let you make your own conclusions,” he told NOTUS.
The outlet also asked the Republican lawmaker whether he condemns any kind of violent insurrection. Instead of saying “yes” or “of course,” Banks said he condemns “the Democrats for what they’ve done to weaponize the federal government against their political enemies.” (There is literally no evidence of Democrats weaponizing the federal government against their political enemies. There is, however, overwhelming evidence of Trump trying to weaponize the federal government against his political enemies — which Banks has never publicly criticized.)
Asked whether he believed his promotion of the Appeal to Heaven flag, on the night of Trump’s conviction, could be misconstrued, Banks added, “I’m not sure what there is to misconstrue.”
It seems like it would’ve been quite easy for the Indiana Republican — who’s all but certain to be elected to the Senate in the fall — simply to express his opposition to armed rebellion. For reasons he has not yet explained, Banks apparently doesn’t want to deliver such a message.