Much Ado About Nothing

Thoughts on a recent social media circus. . .

The hugely-publicized summit between the United States and North Korea took place a few days ago, and one of the many things about it that struck me as interesting was people's reactions over how both nations' flags were on display.  The American and North Korean flags were posted at the same height, which led some people (although not the ones you think - more on that shortly) to lose their minds.

Honestly, it's a lot of sound and fury over a non-issue.  Here's why.  Every official meeting between two heads of state, as well as many of their ambassadors, cabinet officials, etc, etc, etc, is planned down to the most minor detail according to a long-standing set of customs and courtesies.  They probably come from ancient Roman traditions or practices that became common back when kings and queens were in style.  I don't know the history.  But the point is that neither country improvised this recent summit.

Here's a fun fact: did you know that the US State Department has a branch just for this sort of thing? It's called the Office of the Chief of Protocol.  Here's what it has to say about foreign nations' flags:

Q: What is the order of display for the U.S. flag and a flag of a foreign nation?

A: The two flags should be on separate staffs.  Both flags should be the same size and flown at the same height.  The U.S. flag is flown in the place of honor, which is to the viewer's left.

So, you see, there's already an established procedure in place for this.  I'd bet dollars to donuts that some junior-level worker bees from the US protocol office, and their North Korean counterparts, were feverishly flipping through some thick, hardbound manual to figure out how both nations' flags were displayed.

Do you really think that the same person who can't be bothered to read an intelligence briefing longer than a page seems like a person who gets that involved in the mundane minutiae of a diplomatic ceremony? Hell no.  Relax, folks, he probably had very little to do with planning this ceremony; and he certainly didn't micromanage it down to the last detail. And despite his obvious affinity for authoritarians and strongmen, I can guarantee he didn't order the North Korean flag to be at the same level as the US flag.

But that's exactly what you would think he did, based on the level of outrage from some sources.  I was expecting some vitriol, and I found plenty of it on Twitter.  The anti-Trump crowd was losing its shit.  Now, I can certainly understand where they're coming from.  If you didn't know about the flag protocol, it appeared that the United States was treating Kim Jong Un as an equal.  That's certainly not a good look, given how much blood he has on his hands.  But a lot of people should have known better.  Maybe not about the specific regulation concerning flags, but at least the general awareness that these kinds of meetings are very traditional and ritualistic and based on established precedent?

Hell, I figured that out because I served in the military, where there's a collection of regulations for damn near every formal event: parades, promotion boards, change of command ceremonies, and so on.  The State Department isn't the military, of course, but diplomatic duties involve a fair amount of ceremonies.  Therefore, it's not hard to guess that State has regulations for all of those ceremonies, just as the military does.

The people who were coming down on Trump for the flag non-issue should have realized this, or at least been aware of the possibility.  There are countless valid reasons to hammer on Trump, but if it becomes an instinctive thing to the point someone lets their loathing override their logic, the anti-Trump crowd is devolving into a tribal mob.  I saw what that's like for about eight years, as Hannity, Limbaugh, and a handful of other hacks made it their goal to whip their viewers/listeners into a frothing fury over every little thing. (Hey, remember the "latte salute" incident?) And guess what? It was pretty successful.  If the anti-Trump crowd is going to engage in the same kind of knee-jerk resentment, they've become the mirror image of the Hannity/Limbaugh crowd.  That doesn't help put the country back on the right path.

I'm curious what they expected, though.  Hypothetically, if North Korea ever gives up its nukes and rejoins the global community, there's going to have to be several ceremonies like the one this weekend.  International politics often means associating with unsavory people, even the Scum of the Earth.  It's not like every nation on earth is governed by perfect saints.  On top of that, what would arranging the ceremony to treat Kim as an inferior accomplish? It makes the US look kind of like a bully, and makes North Korea resentful.  History buffs know that humiliating a country like that can sometimes backfire spectacularly.

On the other hand, the people who one might expect to get worked up over the flag display have been largely silent.  Curious (not really, I'm being rhetorical), considering how worked up those people have gotten over similar supposedly disrespectful behavior toward the American flag.  I suspect that if you could draw a Venn diagram of the people who are shrugging and saying "meh" over this particular flag issue and of people who fly into a rage over NFL players kneeling during the National Anthem, it would be a near-perfect circle.  I guess those people forgot to get outraged this time, because they were too busy fawning over their political savior.

Both sides of this brouhaha are letting their tribal instincts override their common sense.  That's hardly a surprise, given how polarized things have gotten.  But this is such a ridiculous thing to get fired up over, especially when there's an unexciting, simple explanation.  (There are a lot of parties who have a stake in seeing the population get worked up over a relatively inconsequential issue, though, and I might tackle that topic in the future.) Tribalism is a helluva drug, though.  It shuts off your critical thinking abilities and turns people into hypocrites.

ADDENDUM: In a postscript to the flag non-issue, President Trump was captured on tape saluting a high-ranking North Korean general.  Now, there is a school of thought that a President shouldn't be saluting AT ALL, in accordance with not blurring the line between the military and its civilian leadership - retired Navy Chief Warrant Officer Jim Wright wrote a great Twitter thread about it, here.  I personally think the Commander in Chief can render a salute without sliding into one of those pseudo-military strongmen that exist around the world, but I do see the logic in what Wright is saying.  However, even if military customs and courtesies permitted the Commander in Chief to render salutes, AR 600-25 states that service members only renders salutes to military officers of friendly foreign nations  The US and North Korea are technically still in a state of war, so North Korea is not a friendly nation by any stretch. 

It's perfectly natural to wonder if the salute was yet another manifestation of Trump's affinity for authoritarian regimes, because there have been so, so many.  But there's a saying that goes, "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity." I think it applies here.  I'm going to chalk this up to stupidity, even though accidentally saluting an officer in a hostile nation's military seems like a pretty damn big brain fart.  I'm not going to pin this on some sinister authoritarian explanation, but I'm not letting Trump's dumb ass off the hook either.