President-elect Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Friday to complain that the American flag will be flown at half-staff for his inauguration due to the period of mourning for the recently deceased former President Jimmy Carter.In the immediate aftermath of Carter's passing, Trump act...
President-elect Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Friday to complain that the American flag will be flown at half-staff for his inauguration due to the period of mourning for the recently deceased former President Jimmy Carter.
In any event, because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast," he continued. "Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it.
So, as usual, wrong about basically everything- It will be the second time: it was already flown at half mast during Nixon's 1973 inauguration due to Harry Truman's death in Dec., 1972
And "half-mast" is a term only used on ships (that is, things that have masts). On land, where we have flagstaffs (a.k.a. flagpoles), the correct term is "half-staff".
Edit: it looks like it's time to school some Americans on English, a particularly easy task.
Let's start with the definition from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, descendant of arguably the definitive American dictionary, certainly one of the first, created by Noah Webster.
A slender vertical or nearly vertical structure (such as an upright post in various cranes).
Now, from the American Heritage dictionary.
A vertical pole.
Going farther field, from the Cambridge dictionary.
A pole that holds a flag.
Note that both the Merriam-Webster and Cambridge dictionaries list half-mast as related phrases.
I agree with the sentiment, but the flag should always be at half mass when a president dies.
I don't care if we elect a literal turkey to the presidency. When that turkey dies, we lower the flags to half mast.
It's a shame that Donald Trump doesn't see and understand that.
Honoring the dead is important.