Swing voters

... It's the Southwest. People from Mexico and of Mexican ancestry live there. They feel pride for their culture. How could this logically be seen as a badthing?
- There is a very silly argument that we shouldn't fly foreign flags because it is giving racists ammunition for their "invading army of immigrants" claims. As if appeasing racists has historically worked to dissuage them
  
  The only reason I can think that's a good idea for protestors to fly an American flag over their more preferred flag is the optics look real bad if cops are year attacking crowds with a bunch of people flying US flags. Of course the bootlickers on the right will still justify it.
- It's also just very hypocritical. It has long been common for immigrants to the US to display the flags of their country of origin. There are still Irish and Italian flags here everywhere. Lots of flags used in the Asian-American community, some even for countries that no longer exist.
  Mexico has just been so long maligned by modern white Americans that they don't believe Mexican-Americans are entitled to the same degree of cultural pride afforded to everyone else.
- Not to mention it used to be Mexico
- Fox News only shows the 1 or 2 stores getting looted. They don’t show the regular protesters waving flags and asking for peace.
  It’s making others scary and that’s what the dipshits I work with are seeing every day. It’s depressing.

I don't understand how anyone could be a "swing voter" at this point in history. You'd have to be living under a rock in a faraday cage on mars or something
- Talk to any MAGA. They have no idea what's going on. If it's not spit on Newsmax or heavy right wing podcasts...they have no idea. Just still sucking off Trump's mushroom.
- I mean, that's essentially how many people live. They intermittently get their news from Instagram, and they vote based on that. Most of the information they consume is reality TV, beer advertisements, and friends showing off the new sneakers they got. They spend most of their time working and taking care of their kids (yeah, somehow they thought that was a good idea), and then they vote. They truly are the NPCs of the world.
  
  Ah to live happy, privileged and be considered an NPC, what a dream
- Yeah, where would you vote for in NL?
  (I understand this is about the US and I am just making a joke)

I understand every single word and am up to date about what's happening in LA and some other places, but can't make sense of this. Can someone please simplify this for me?
- Someone was pictured with Mexican flag in a striking photo and a lot of news outlets/pundits etc are making a big deal out of how it might offend the hypothetical "swing voter" to see a non-us flag associated with the protest and how its "bad optics." This poster is saying maybe instead of endlessly speculating about what protests are doing that might offend disconnected third parties instead that effort should be spent telling these swing voters to grow up.
  
  Millions of American people with Irish ancestry fly or even have the Irish flag tattooed on themselves. They even flew it in protests and marches last year over how Biden responded to the genocide in Gaza, but I'm sure that's totally different
- People are flying Mexican flags, and other people are saying maybe that's not the best look.
  
  people are saying maybe that's not the best look.
  Even you!
  
  I think it's the opposite of a bad look, they are saying I'm from another country and yet I belong here. Without the flag it doesn't highlight the multiculturalism that makes America great. I think it is important to show that they are immigrants and they have every right to be here.

I get the feeling I'm in the minority here, but let me try to express a nuanced opinion on the Internet:
I don't think it's a good idea to fly the Mexican flag at these protests.
To be clear:
I don't object to it.
I don't think those who do it are less American.
I don't think the "swing voter" effect of it matters at all.
But it's unwise and counterproductive because:
It's creating a narrative that Trump's specific lie about there being an "invasion" is true.
That lie will be used to both physically abuse protestors and legitimize using federal armed forces against civilians, now and for the next four years.
It gives an easy out for racists who are looking for an excuse to dehumanize and cheer police brutality.
The alternative, using the American flag, in context obviously shows this is about us taking America back from the racists, that they are not free to define America.
If the goal is to show multiculturalism, the American flag is also better. America is built on immigrants. It is the proverbial "melting pot." As the saying go, our flag is red with the blood of immigrants who fought for the country, not just in wars but to be accepted and treated as equals. They have earned the right for it to represent them.
Avoiding it because it's associated with the right is short-sighted and tragic. Right wing nut jobs should not be allowed to continue to appropriate the American flag, to make it toxic. Because they are traitors who are trying to destroy constitutional rule of law, i.e. America, while we are trying to protect it.
- It used to be that nonviolent protest was intended to provoke a violent suppressive reaction from the state. It might be uncomfortable to some but I think the white moderate that MLK agitated against are the same people concern trolling over the optics of various forms of nonviolent protest now.
  Agitation is the point. Provoking violence from the state is the point.
  
  Yea, but provoking violence to what end?
  People aren't doing it just to get beat up. It's about making a fascist regime look as bad as they are. Which looks worse? A country blatantly attacking its own citizens flying its own flag? Or a country attacking illegal immigrants flying a flag of a foreign country we've kinda' had a war with in the past?
  One of these has much more powerful imagery, especially for the dumdums who do not understand cultural pride in other cultures, like most Americans.
- The American flag has always been a toxic symbol of imperialist, capitalist oppression. The right wing didn't make it toxic, this country's history did that itself.
  Don't buy into the bullshit propaganda and whitewashing of this nation's sordid, bloody history.
  The only thing the American flag is good for is burning.
  
  In other contexts I would burn a flag, sure. The flag is emblematic of the struggle that is our country, and the struggle can mean different things, positive and negative, in context.
  At the end of the day, we all live in America. We have an idea of America as a multi-cultural, immigrant nation. That is the correct idea. We have a right to define what the flag means.
  Otherwise we've already conceded the patriotic high ground. It's like giving the enemy control of the (metaphoric) capitol of the nation just so we can be the insurgency. You feel better but it's tactically irrational. Why is it not better to start out with moral ownership of the nation's core symbol?
  
  Upside down flag is a good compromise
- Counter-agrument:
  middle-of-the-road approach only helps the opressing party, not the opressed
  If we want to improve things, we should decisively explain that migrants are not the problem, never were, most hate towards them is unfounded and misplaced.
  Then we might start looking at the core problem, not dancing around Jeb who watches latina porn but cocks his shotgun when he sees skin darker than porcelain around his house or in his TV.
  Migrants do more for the country than most 'patriots', and deserve to be proud of their heritage.
  Fascists will keep lying about everything regardless of reality, never care about what bad faith actors may say.
  
  I appreciate the counter-argument, it's not wrong in a pluralistic, we-can-both-hold-equally-valid-but-incommensurable-values sense. But I think insisting on that flag is picking a harder battle for no reason.
  I think the problem with the optics - and of course, by this I mean, the problem with fascist-accelerating interpretations and not swing voters or Jeb's feelings - is that the Mexican flag became a proxy for the movement flag. If it was a variety of flags + the American flag, that would convey a message that couldn't be misused. But when Fox News can plaster a bunch of Mexican flag images on their immigrant-protest-panic news stories, it gives Trump cover to send in the federal military here, which - once established as precedent, as Stephen Miller knows - will now become the accepted norm for future protests, and then for future opposition purges, and then for a future normalized authoritarian state.
  And while I get the "don't cater to racists" principle, we need to think about strategic consequences - if we give the fascists ammunition, they will not hesitate to use it to kill us. In this way the protestors are not seriously thinking about this as the war that it is, as much as their passions and hearts are in the right place - they are doing things that feel good but may harm their cause. It's, again, counter-productive.
  My advocacy (didn't intend for it to be, but it has turned out that way) to flying the American flag is that it doesn't give the fascists ammunition that will be used against us. That should not only be a valid concern, but an overriding one to win the war.

I guess people want to fly something but flying American flag is considered too rude.
For many non us people I know, flying American flag in public is no different from showing middle finger or exposing private parts.
- We are also a nation of immigrants, and cultural heritage and pride is huge among those populations, which is something Wonderbreadville USA can't seem to understand, but also actively hates. My wife is 4th generation Mexican American, was born out of the Chicano movement, and they all celebrate their Mexican heritage while also being more American that the idiots screaming about white rights. No one gets pissy about a German, English/UK, French, Canadian, etc flag, but the second the flag of a brown country is flow, people lose their minds without a hint of irony.
- Yeah, it’s a bummer, but displaying the American flag at this point in history is going to make people think you are racist and at least a bit stupid.
  Was driving the other day and saw a big American flag in a front yard and thought “well, I guess I know what kind of folks live there…” but as I got closer I saw that the blue section, instead of stars, said FUCK TRUMP. And I was like “oh.. you got me!” 👉😎 👉

I think we should fly all the flags, expressing the true diversity of the US.

where's the memes? this is just someone moaning.

Well then stop reading those posts I guess

The problem with democracy is that you can't get very far just by telling the voters how they ought to behave. I'm happy that I'm not a politician, because after the last election I don't respect the majority of American voters. Trying to win their support would be demeaning. However, someone is going to do it, and if he isn't a Democrat who does care (or acts like he cares) about people like Steve in Wisconsin, he'll be a Republican instead.
- The issue with the US is the 2 party system and the corruption

Flying another country's flag at a protest really does seem like a bad idea though.
- California is full of people who are Mexican immigrants and people who have lived here since it was Mexico. ‘Stop waving Mexican flags after Mexican Americans and Latinos in general were kidnapped off the street’ is stupid and every minute spent focusing on making protestors protest in a way which will satisfy everyone—which, what do you know, just happens to be a fool’s errand that will result in support from nobody—is a minute you could have been telling ICE and the LAPD to fuck off instead.
  
  I find the liberal capacity to realpolitik their way into genocide while simultaneously being unable to understand the demands of basic political rhetoric fascinating.
- They're flying the flag of their culture