In my experience, there is a deep vein of antipathy toward America on the left. I brought up condescension toward the flag because I think it is emblematic of that antipathy. I mean, the flag is just about the purest symbolic representation of America that exists. So if your attitude toward it is that you wouldn’t deign to adorn yourself or anything you own with it, and you disparage it as fitting only of some lower class, what viable interpretation of that fact is there other than that you feel negatively about the thing which it represents?

Or perhaps another way to think of it: if you had a friend who, every time a certain person came up, immediately started to enumerate that person’s flaws, what would you conclude about their feelings toward that person?