As protests around the country feature protesters tearing down the American flag and replacing it with the Palestinian flag, or at least trying to, billionaire SpaceX founder and X owner Elon Musk argued that there’s a simple solution to that issue. In his view, those who tear down the American flag to replace it with another country’s should be given a one-way ticket to that other country.
Such is what Mr. Musk posted about on Thursday, May 2, sharing his thoughts on such a deportation campaign in the context of the campus protests and then posting a poll to ask his followers what they think of the idea.
In the May 2 post, he said, “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.” The poll got about 1.5 million votes, and close to three-quarters of those polled said that they agreed with the proposed law.
In an addendum to the original poll and tweet, Mr. Musk added that, under his policy, the deportees could eventually be allowed back, but only after spending enough time in the other country to the point of being able to understand what it is like. He said, “I’m not saying they can’t come back, but they have to experience that country for some period of time before returning.”
Replying, one commenter drew attention to when, after passing the most recent $100 billion foreign aid bill, members of Congress waived Ukrainian flags. That commenter said, “Yes, and we should explore the same idea for any politician waving the flag of a foreign country in our Congress.” Replying, Elon said, “That was weird. At least wave the American flag too!”
Another commenter, Tennessee Republican Robby Starbuck, suggested an additional program to go along with Elon’s, saying, “We should also have a communism exchange program where we allow American communists to go to any communist country of their choosing and allow one refugee from communism in their place.”
Yet another commenter wrote, “I absolutely agree with this. Americans are spoiled and entitled. I would rather see them suffer in the country they support and come back to America with a new respect for what we actually represent. Freedom.”
On the other side of things, numerous commenters attacked Elon’s idea as being anti-free speech. For example, one wrote, “isn’t your whole thing free speech? why are you proposing a law that’s anti-free speech lmfao.”
The general discontent over protesters tearing down the American flag was particularly exacerbated by an incident at UNC, where protesters tried to tear down the American flag and were stopped by members of Pi Kappa Phi. Explaining what happened, UNC student and Pi Kappa Phi brother Guillermo Estrada said, “My fraternity brother and others ran over to hold it up, in order for it not to touch the ground. 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.”