Then came the Tea Party movement, which adopted the banner in 2010 as a sort of catch-all symbol of disgust with government. The journalist Rob Walker, writing in The New Yorker in 2016, said, "The Gadsden design remained something of a Revolutionary relic for many years." However, " the nineteen-seventies, it had some popularity in Libertarian circles, as a symbol of ideological enthusiasm for minimal government and the rights of individuals."Įrin Scott/Bloomberg via Getty Images A discarded Gadsden flag inside the U.S. "One thing we can say about its origins, regardless of how it's used or who uses it or why it's used today, is that it really was just completely an anti-British anti-colonial symbol," he says. In 1775, Christopher Gadsden, a South Carolina politician, "took that menacing rattle rattlesnake and put it on the flag," Leepson says. In 2015, in a 5-4 decision, the court held that such specialty plates (not to be confused with "vanity plates") were government speech and therefore states have the right to pick and choose what goes on them.īenjamin Franklin was the first to use the rattlesnake as a symbol of defiance against the British crown, says Marc Leepson, a journalist, historian and author of Flag: An American Biography. The veterans group sued, and the case ultimately went to the Supreme Court. In 2009, the group Confederate Veterans, Inc., requested the flag on a specialty license plate, but Texas refused. Capitol.Ĭarroll Rivas compares it to a similar controversy over the use of the Confederate "stars and bars" flag on license plates. She says it's become clear that the flag has been used for some "really awful" causes, most notably the Jan. "The state can't claim a lack of knowledge about what this image represents to most of the public," says Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director of research and analysis for the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Ron DeSantis says the state's "Don't tread on me" license plate sends a "clear message to out-of-state cars." Governor Ron DeSantis Office Florida Gov.
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