Council Members End Pledge of Allegiance for Diversity's Sake, Protesters Shame Them with Single Chant
This pledge protest had some powerful friends.
About 100 residents of a Minneapolis suburb turned out this week for a city council meeting, chanting “USA, USA, USA” and taking a stand against a unanimous council decision last month to end a longstanding tradition of opening each meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.
In a district that elected radical Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar in November, that council decision is getting a lot of attention — including from President Donald Trump.
The city council of St. Louis Park, a town of about 45,000 west of Minnesota, decided the pledge was no longer fitting for their apparently diverse community, according to Fox News.
“Not everyone who does business with the city or has a conversation is a citizen,” Councilwoman Anne Mavity, who sponsored the measure, told KARE.
“They certainly don’t need to come into city council chambers and pledge their allegiance to our country in order to tell us what their input is about a sidewalk in front of their home.”
There were plenty, though, who disagreed with the decision. And in the end, the council members agreed to revisit their decision, which wasn’t due to take effect until next week, according to Fox News.
Check out the Fox News report here:
“I’m appalled that our little suburban community’s little meeting protocol has sparked this polarizing conversation in our community on what it means to be patriotic,” Mavity said.
The conversation has gone beyond Mavity’s “little suburban community.”
On Tuesday morning, Trump weighed in on the issue on Twitter.
As every one of the 63 million Americans who voted for him would expect, he came down firmly on the side of the pledge supporters.
Outrage is growing in the Great State of Minnesota where our Patriots are now having to fight for the right to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I will be fighting with you! @foxandfriends
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2019
And even though there were plenty of liberals who responded to Trump’s tweet with typical vacuous viciousness, Trump supporters knew exactly where he was coming from.
I’m in St. Louis Park, Sir. Thank you and keep up the pressure as we have. They’re on their heels after a raucous open meeting last week wherein things got a *little* loud. We’re not taking this sitting down.
— VelvetHammer (@Maureen_Wenner) July 10, 2019
It’s a sad day when we have to defend our rights to say the pledge of allegiance . I’m with you Mr President! Fight on!
— Mark LeMaster (@MarkLeMaster14) July 10, 2019
??I HAVN’T SEEN A PRESIDENT IN AMERICA THATS BEEN MORE AMERICAN THAN OUR DULY ELECTED PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP. THIS IS WHY REAL AMERICA STANDS UNITED AND SUPPORTS OUR DULY ELECTED PRESIDENT ?100% ?? LETS KEEP AMERICA GREAT ?? AMERICA WANTS 4 MORE YEARS OF PRESIDENT TRUMP???
— EDWARD ASHTON ?? (@EdwardAshton30) July 9, 2019
It might be expected that radical liberals who don’t like the president will take foolish public positions.
But it’s a mystery why five members of a city council in Minnesota would think their residents would not object to their decision to deliberately disrespect the country that made their positions as elected officers even possible.
As one of the protesters pointed out, the pledge takes about 15 seconds to say. That’s not going to lengthen anyone’s local government meeting.
Fortunately, every member of the council is going to have to face the voters at some point. It’s a good bet that some of them are going to find out their position on the pledge isn’t as popular among regular people as it is in Rep. Omar’s district office. (Maybe it’s just a coincidence that, as Fox News reported in February, Omar’s district is also the terrorist recruitment capital of the United States.)
And with a tweet from the White House taking notice, it’s also a good bet their decision is going to be getting a lot more attention than any of them ever dreamed.
It might be true that not everyone who does business with the city is a citizen, as Mavity put it, but it’s also true that no one is forced to say the pledge. Evidently, though, Mavity and her colleagues thought it was too much trouble.
For many of the residents, the decision was clearly a slap in the face of an American tradition.
So they protested, they said the pledge, they chanted “USA, USA” — and they got some powerful friends in the process.
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