Former President Donald Trump has released a campaign ad praising students pushing back against unruly protesters, prominently highlighting a group of University of North Carolina (UNC) students who went viral for holding up an American flag to keep it off the ground.
“While campuses struggle to get control of their students, at UNC Chapel Hill, they are bringing order back,” the ad narrator says over ominous music.
The ad shows the young men, members of the UNC-Chapel Hill chapter of Pi Kappa Phi, holding up the flag to keep it from touching the ground and not backing down while being screamed at and pelted with water bottles by protesters surrounding them.
“My fraternity brother and others ran over to hold [the flag] up, in order for it not to touch the ground,” Mr. Estrada, a student of the Class of 2027, wrote. “People began throwing water bottles at us, rocks, sticks, calling us profane names. We stood for an hour defending the flag so many fight to protect.”
“God bless those UNC frat guys for taking down the Palestinian flag and putting up Old Glory,” the ad continued, displaying more imagery of Stars-and-Stripes-waving, “USA”-chanting crowds of counter-protesters at other institutions, including those at the Universities of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana.
Patriotism Rewarded
The flag-defending frat brothers are being rewarded for their display of patriotism.As of the time of publishing, a GoFundMe page created to throw the fraternity members a “rager” had raised more than $510,000.
“Commie losers across the country have invaded college campuses to make dumb demands of weak University Administrators,” the GoFundMe page reads in part. “But amidst the chaos, the screaming, the anti-semitism, the hatred of faith and flag, stood a platoon of American heroes.”
“Armored in Vineyard Vines and Patagonia, fueled by Zyn and White Claws, these triumphant Brohemians protected Old Glory from the unwashed Marxist horde—laughing at their shrieks and wails and shielding the Stars & Stripes from Soviet missiles.”
Their actions also drew the attention of country star John Rich, who offered to put on a free concert for their “celebration of freedom.”
In an update on Wednesday, the “Save a Horse” singer told his followers on X that he had been in contact with the UNC frat members and was setting up the show.
A Simple Solution to Protect American Flags
X owner Elon Musk has also weighed on the social media sensation, offering a simple suggestion for those who would replace an American flag with that of another country—a one-way plane ticket to that country.“Proposed law: if someone tears down the American flag and puts up another flag in its place, that person should get a free (but mandatory) one-way trip to that flag’s country,” he wrote Thursday on X alongside a poll asking how many users would support such a policy going forward.
“I’m not saying they can’t come back, but they have to experience that country for some period of time before returning,” he explained.
Upon the unveiling of the final poll results on Friday, the response to Mr. Musk’s proposition was overwhelmingly positive. Among 1.5 million X users who voted in his poll, nearly 1.2 million of them (79.9 percent) showed support for such a policy, while under 300,000 (20.1 percent) said they opposed it.
