As the push grows to remove Confederate flags from Southern states as well as retail stores such as Walmart and Sears nationwide, talk-radio star Rush Limbaugh is making a startling prediction.
"The next flag that will come under assault, and it will not be long, is the American flag," Limbaugh said Tuesday on his national program. "It is gonna happen. We are trending that way."
"It makes perfect sense," he continued. "If you take a look at the timeline of progression of events, the speed and rapidity with which the left is conducting this assault on all of these American traditions and institutions, if you don't think the American flag's in their crosshairs down the road, you had better stop and reconsider.
"The American flag is what? It's the symbol of America. The left, what? Doesn't like this country very much and never has and it's getting angrier and angrier about it seemingly every day. The American flag stands for the United States of America and as such, everything that's wrong with it. And you wait, it isn't gonna be long before the American flag is gonna cause chills, fear, scary thoughts ... [because] it's a symbol of hate."
Limbaugh said those on the political left are under the impression that just seeing the Stars and Stripes can cause people to tilt toward the political right.
"They believe the American flag has mystical powers to turn people away from the Democratic Party," he explained, saying they fear it "results in them losing support."
"The 4th of July parade is uberpatriotism, and that is showing Dracula the cross."
"You know as well as I do that part and parcel of being a socialist or a leftist is animosity to one degree or another for the United States in general. And then it intensifies once you get specific about aspects of the United States they find objectionable," he added.
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But Limbaugh predicted Democrats and the political left would not be the only ones looking to get rid of the American flag.
"And then what are the Republicans gonna do? Who'll be the first among them to say, 'Yep, we need a redesign.'"
Listen to Rush Limbaugh discuss the future of the American flag:
Harbingers of Limbaugh's prediction have already taken place in some locations.
As WND reported, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to intervene in a California case in which school officials censored flag-themed shirts worn by some students at a high school because they feared violence from Latino students.
Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals warned the decision would result in "mob rule."
"The next case might be a student wearing a shirt bearing the image of Che Guevara, or Martin Luther King Jr. or Pope Francis," he said. "It might be a student wearing a President Obama 'Hope' shirt, or a shirt exclaiming 'Stand with Rand!' It might be a shirt proclaiming the shahada, or a shirt accounting 'Christ is risen!' It might be any viewpoint imaginable, but whatever it is, it will be vulnerable to the rule of the mob."
In April, a video challenge to show solidarity with a New Black Panther Party college student sought by police asked watchers to stomp the American flag and post their pictures to the Internet.
It was called the #EricSheppardChallenge, aimed at giving support to a Valdosta State University student who self-identifies as a "terrorist toward white people," as WND previously reported.
Sheppard, 22, first made national headlines when a female veteran tried to intervene in his flag burning on campus. The video of their exchange, and the veteran's subsequent altercation with police, went viral. Police later recovered a backpack belonging to Sheppard containing a gun and two clips, and kicked off a search for him.
Also in April, an East Tennessee veteran was forced by her homeowners association to take down her flag because of a rule indicating structures require permission, including flagpoles.
"It felt like there was an empty place," Delia Foster told WBIR-TV. "Not only in my yard, but in my heart."
Foster was eventually victorious and able to fly the flag again after discovering the county does not define the flagpole as a structure. She also learned her HOA never voted to specifically ban flagpoles.
On Monday, Limbaugh reminded his listeners it was Democrats who first raised the rebel flag over the Capitol in South Carolina – and therefore, it should be Democrats who take up the cause to remove it.
"Do people even care anymore about truth, objective truth?" he asked. "When did this become a Republican problem? Logical certitude? Do people care about this stuff anymore? Does it matter?"
Limbaugh said it was former Democrat Sen. Earnest "Fritz" Hollings, who served in 1962, who advocated for the flying of the Confederate flag over the Capitol.
But now, it's Republicans who are taking the public relations hit for its presence, he said.
"When did all this become a Republican problem? Who wrote the lyrics of the song, 'Dixie?' If you go to Arkansas," Limbaugh said, "you know, all these old racial segregationists, they're all Democrats. Bill Clinton's mentor from Arkansas, J. William Fulbright, was a proud segregationist. And Bill Clinton signed a proclamation authorizing the Confederate flag to fly over the statehouse in Arkansas."
The Weekly Standard reported former Clinton advisor Paul Begala told CNN's Chris Cuomo Tuesday that Hillary Clinton "absolutely" has to answer for standing by her husband when he served as governor of Arkansas and defended that state's flag's relationship to the Confederate battle flag.
"Does she have to answer for her time as first lady in Arkansas with Bill standing by the Arkansas flag proudly when it, too, is said to borrow from the Confederate symbology?" Cuomo said.
"Well, sure, absolutely," said Begala. "Times change. Circumstances change."
"This is a completely different country than it was 20 or 30 years ago," he said.