What flag will you fly on Independence Day?

A flag for a federation of red states

What does the American flag represent? The federal government or its state? The current inhabitants of the US? The people and culture of heritage America?

July 4 is a day to celebrate our Founders, our independence, and our people, but we owe it to our future to be realistic about whether Trump will fix fedgov. The Supreme Court did ban lower-court national injunctions recently, but not injunctions, which means that any class action lawsuit can still have national effect. Based on the APA, a lowly federal judge yesterday blocked Trump nationally from ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitian illegals in the US. So they’ll still be eating the dogs & cats in Springfield, Ohio.

That's 104 rulings against Trump this year by federal judges, with 83 decisions blocked, according to my list:

The red-state secession movement doesn't have a flag but people will immediately understand your meaning if you fly your state flag above the US flag. Turn the US flag upside down if you want to be really clear. Bonus points for using a small US flag.

There is no penalty in federal law for violating flag etiquette. In fact there’s no penalty for burning a flag you physically own at this point. Yes, burning a flag that someone else physically owns is not only theft, but can be considered a “hate crime.” This is because courts apply the 1st Amendment to simple speech but allow states to add a speech penalty to the penalty of a real crime. Another exception to the 1st Amendment is if speech creates a “hostile work environment” since courts consider the Civil Rights Act to be more important than the Constitution.

If you don’t want to offend neighbors, or you don’t want to buy a US flag, simply fly only your state flag, as is still common in parts of the South.

Many Southerners fly the CSA Battle Flag too. If you live in Texas or Louisiana, you can fly flags for the Texas or Louisiana secession movements.

Why we’ll probably need a new flag

We should get used to the idea that blue-state secession is less likely than red-state secession, so we’re more likely to leave the flag than they are. We can hope that the blue states would let us have it anyway, since they seem to hate heritage America, but they’re unlikely to want to pay the costs of the change, at least not early enough to help us distinguish their military vehicles from ours when it matters.

Coups don’t really work in countries where the populace is tuned in to politics, according to Edward Luttwak, the expert on coups, and American’s weren’t willing to support a Caesar as of 2022. Unless there is a coup or civil war, it’s unlikely that the right wing will have enough power to expel blue states from the US, or to be powerful enough to make them motivated to actually leave.

As of June 2025, the most secessionist blue state is likely to be California (based on earlier national polls), and it was just polled showing 45% support for (55% opposed to) declaring independence.

This means that support for California secession is growing and greater than ever, but it’s still lower than our June 2022 polls of Alabama (47%), Louisiana's 50% or Texas’ 60% (66% for persistent voters). That’s the last time those states were polled separately about peacefully seceding. Red states are more likely to secede.

The upside of leaving the Union instead of watching blue states leave the Union is that we get to create a loose federation. One downside is we need a new flag for our new federation. That means that we should stop uplifting the star-spangled banner and start uplifting our state flags, so that people won’t be so hesitant to secede.

In a loose federation, the state flag becomes more important than before because each state has its own troops organized as a state military. But even when each of the original 13 states fought their own wars for independence from Great Britain 250 years ago, and signed the peace treaty as separate, independent states in 1783, they fought under a unified command headed by George Washington. They did this to be more organized, effective & efficient, to reduce strife between states, and to reduce the chances that Great Britain would be able to entice one state at a time to settle for a separate peace.

We’d certainly need to use a federation flag on our military vehicles & uniforms to avoid friendly fire because there would be dozens of red states, and their flags, in the federation. Imagine having your finger on a trigger while an unknown vehicle drives by. Fedgov will have to let red states take their share of the assets of the federal military if fedgov wants the red states to accept their share of the federal debt. That means that flags will be the only apparent difference between the looks of their military and ours, at least at first.

Dreaming about possibilities for a federation flag

Our Anglo heritage gives us a very limited color palette for national flags, as with most of northern Europe. Even state flags acknowledge this:

We’ll need a flag that looks different from the US flag at a distance. Thin red stripes could get us killed by friendly fire or hesitancy to fire.

Is it too weird for the “red” states to have a blue flag? Will we be called the “Red Stats of America” or the “Sovereign States of America” or something else? 13 stars represents our ties to the original founding of the US, which red states have been truer to than the blue states have. No need to add or subtract as the federation grows or shrinks.

The flag above has a St Andrew’s Cross from the CSA Battle Flag to represent the South, and a St George’s Cross to represent the North. Personally I’m a fan of St George’s cross, which is the cross of England, because it came from the Crusades. It’s a red cross on a white field. Any federation would have English as an official language. If you do a study of your family tree back to the 1600s, you’re likely to find that you have English ancestry than you think. Family lore is not a good guide; our society was originally 100% English, so English ancestry was considered less remarkable, and was therefore less likely to be mentioned to descendants in family lore. There is probably more English DNA than “German” DNA or any other country’s DNA in the US, although there has been some inflated claims about the importance of German immigration.

The flag above does look a bit like Greece's flag, on which the Betsy Ross flag was based (because the first democracy was in Greece). Maybe it's time to stop glorifying direct democracy so much?

A Christian nationalist made this flag, but I think it’s too middle eastern (It uses the Jerusalem Cross of the Crusaders and their states):

Professor Wall

designed a proposal that combines flags of England & old Ireland (St George's & St Patrick's crosses), then adds a dash of blue from Scotland's flag:

Other good ideas could be based on the flag of Tennessee, Florida, or a musket (a symbol that is very american).

I liked the red ensign of New England but Southerners told me it would be hard to sell to the South. Plus New England wouldn’t even be in our federation, I assume. I also love the “Appeal to Heaven” flag it’s based on, which was the first flag used in the US War for Independence, and the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag, but not as national flags.

The League of the South has a flag (white field, black St Andrew’s Cross), but it’s only for their ethnicity, not for the whole federation. The federation could end up having groups of states that are more closely tied, such as the South, maybe to have a common residency or citizenship.

Here’s the flag I like the best, by Ura in our Red-State Secession Telegram group. Maybe the blue should be behind the red, but they’re both crosses, so I hope it doesn’t look disrespectful to either cross. You can find our other social media here.

Memes to share on Independence Day

Click here for four July 4 secessionist memes

Thanks for contacting your legislators about all the states’ rights bills this year. Several of them have been signed by governors!