"My Boyfriend and I Are Buying a House. I Worry About What He’ll Put on the Flagpole."

[minoanmiss]

Ma href="https://slate.com/advice/2024/08/relationship-advice-political-beliefs-american-red-flags.html"> We have … very different political beliefs.

Dear Wedge Issues,

My boyfriend and I are on the verge of buying a house together. I love him so much, and we are on the whole extremely compatible; I have no reservations about this move at all. But we do have very different political beliefs. We agree on some things, have conversations with gentle pushback on others, and kind of just agree not to talk about a few other things. He generally abhors all politicians, so I am not concerned about him putting up yard signs for a candidate I despise or anything like that, but I do live in fear of the dreaded flagpole.

If we buy a home with one or he decides to put a flagpole up, what say do I have in what he chooses to fly? I would certainly draw the line at a Confederate flag, which I consider a hate symbol, but what if he wants to put up a Gadsden flag or something else that on its face communicates “freedom” but in reality has been co-opted by a certain subset of the right? Do I hold that same line? Passive-aggressively fly a Pride flag beneath it? Honestly, even choosing to fly an American flag kind of feels like right-wing posturing to me, but of course I will end up looking like the un-American asshole if I were to ask for one not to be flown.


At the moment this is merely a hypothetical, but I’m attempting to stake out how I feel about this now. I generally try to be vocal about my progressive views in an area where that sometimes leaves me in the minority, and I don’t want to lose that as we become homeowners.

—Liberal Samuel Alito

I’m going to address the practical aspect of your question first, which I think is very solvable. For starters: I don’t know where you’re house hunting, but flagpoles just aren’t that common these days. Chances are, most of the places you tour won’t even have one. If your luck runs out and your dream home comes with a pole attached, back-channel with the sellers and see if you can strike a deal for them to remove the pole for a few hundred extra dollars before they move out. The price would be well worth it to head off any arguments in your future, as would the light subterfuge at your boyfriend’s expense. It’ll be an unorthodox request, so if the sellers say no, ask for their permission to do it on your own prior to closing and tell your significant other that the pole, in real-estate parlance, “did not convey.”


If none of that works and there’s a pole in the ground come move-in day—or your boyfriend simply insists on installing one himself—you still have options. Flags are corny, and you’d be well within your rights to veto their display on aesthetic grounds alone. Alternatively, you could lean into the tackiness. Convince your boyfriend that your priority should be avoiding uncomfortable conversations with neighbors: Does he really want to be the Martha-Ann Alito in this scenario, being called the c-word by passersby on a stroll around the cul-de-sac? No, he does not—so you should steer clear of political iconography and stick to kitschy flags celebrating the seasons, secular nonpatriotic holidays, and cutesy miscellany. Even though flagpoles are generally scarce in the modern neighborhood, it feels as if every small town in America has at least one house with a flag depicting kittens playing in a garden. I’m not sure how this became a standard flag theme, but it could be fruitful territory for your relationship! If cats aren’t your thing, there’s always puppies in Adirondack chairs or bunnies on fences. Become the neighborhood twee-irdo and install a gnome garden to match.

At the very least, your boyfriend should agree that both of you need to be on board with whatever flag hangs near your doorstep. The outside of your home is your face to the neighborhood, the first thing your guests see when they arrive. With a flag, it also becomes a statement of your household’s values. (Even if those values are “lamb lying under daffodils.”) Neither one of you gets to override the other in how you present yourselves to the world. You don’t need to convince him that the Gadsden flag has troubling cultural connotations or try to cancel out the Jan. 6 vibes with an “In This House” sign. You need him only to respect that owning a home together means sharing decisionmaking power, and most choices about the several-hundred-thousand-dollar purchase you’re about to make must be undertaken on the basis of consensus. Sure, maybe everyone gets to decorate their man cave or she shed or nonbinary nook in their own hideous, idiosyncratic style without regard for their partner’s wishes. But flags, on the other hand, are a group project.

So, Liberal Sam, if your primary goal is keeping the peace in your relationship without promoting right-wing ideologies in your front yard, that should do it. But could there be a deeper worry at the heart of this hypothetical?

Before you tie yourself to this man with a legally binding contract and a monthly mortgage payment, I’d invite you to consider what you might learn about your relationship from this thought experiment. Most house hunters don’t “live in fear” of ending up with a flagpole that their partner might commandeer with symbols found in a Southern Poverty Law Center database. If your politics diverge enough to make this a reasonable concern for you, it’s possible that you’re not as “extremely compatible” as your day-to-day interactions may make it seem.


I know that many successful couples make do with political differences. I can appreciate how hard it might be, in an area with few progressive dating prospects, to find someone you generally agree with. But politics are not just matters of opinion or taste, like whether you prefer your flags to depict a hedgehog with mushrooms or a hamster with flowers. They’re expressions of deeply held values that extend far beyond any given election or legislative vote. Politics are about the way we believe that people should be treated, what we think they deserve, and what we owe to one another and future generations as fellow travelers on this bewildering, beautiful planet. They’re about our varying levels of tolerance for the suffering of other human beings and what the hell we should be doing with ourselves as we muddle through an increasingly alienating era together.


That’s extremely clear in our current political climate. Today one side of American politics is careering toward punitive authoritarianism, motivated by retribution and greed, sowing distrust and grievance and nihilism to produce an ever more antisocial public. It’s hard for me to imagine how “very different” political beliefs—not just a minor policy disagreement here and there—can be reconciled into a shared set of values, the likes of which are the bedrock of solid, long-standing relationships.

You mention that your boyfriend hates politicians, which I take as an encouraging sign that he’s not in thrall to, say, the toxic messiah complex of Donald Trump. You merely worry that he might want to celebrate broader ideas of freedom or America in ways that would offend your sensibilities. But when you boil it down, what does freedom mean to him? What does he love about America, and when, if ever, does he think it should come in for criticism? I suspect that his answers will reveal deeper, fundamental differences in your respective worldviews, ones that affect much more than surface-level political leanings. It’s worth reexamining whether you want to live your life in tandem with someone who doesn’t share your accounting of what’s defensible vs. indefensible, just vs. unjust, helpful vs. harmful, and—not to put too fine a point on it, but—good vs. evil.

It also stands out to me that you’re worried about appearing to your boyfriend as an “un-American asshole” for not wanting to fly an American flag. If you’re still concerned that your political beliefs—in this case, your aversion to “right-wing posturing” and gratuitous displays of nationalism—will tarnish his opinion of you, perhaps you two don’t have as much mutual respect for your diverging viewpoints as you’d hoped. And the fact that you’ve even considered the possibility that he might want to display a Confederate flag in front of your home should raise a giant red … well, you know.

Before you start spending your evenings trawling Zillow together, I hope you take a moment alone to think about what your politics say about your morals and what his politics say about his. Do you have any qualms about his character? Can you imagine growing tired of sharing a life with someone whose basic values conflict with yours? If so, it might be time to look for a place of your own.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

This letter made me so sad.

I watched my ex descend into the alt-right cesspool over a period of years after 9/11 and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

That was not why I ended up leaving him six years ago, but it certainly poisoned our relationship and made me question what the hell happened to him. He was not like that when we got married. He changed. I did not. I was a Yellow Dog Democrat when he met me and remain so.

It's very very sad.

[ioplokon]

Does he really want to be the Martha-Ann Alito in this scenario, being called the c-word by passersby on a stroll around the cul-de-sac?
I mean, honestly there is a decent chance that he does, or at least part of his motivation is trolling. (Also, the Alito situation is not really comparable; Samuel Alito was not conflicted or disapproving about his wife's flag choices. He thinks it's cool and good and is lying when he claims he had no say or opinion in this matter! I know it's not the point of this letter, but let's not give him even this flimsy cover)

But yeah, the solutions are simple if this is about the flags and the relationship is otherwise genuinely good. Either don't buy a house with a flag pole or have a 2-check system for flag approval where both of them need to say yes.

[melannen]

LW: If you're tempted to follow the advice about lying to him about a flagpole, don't buy a house with him (or marry him! Or have kids!) It's one thing to disagree on politics, it's another thing to have to lie because you're afraid to try to compromise on politics. Also, frankly, if you're this worried about it and you haven't even started looking at houses yet, don't buy a house with him (or marry him! or have kids!)

That doesn't mean you've gotta break up with him (I would, but you do you) and "right-leaning but hates all politicians" might actually translate as "has already started the journey out of extremism and needs some gentle encouragement without judgement". But you don't seem like you have the kind of working communication with each other where you are the person who could provide that.

Anyway: an American flag doesn't have to be right-wing posturing; again, if your BF is the sort of person where it would *mean* right-wing posturing, don't buy a house with him. But plenty of people fly American flags for other reasons, and a lot of people I know manage to combine "hate all politicians/no point in voting/center-right social and economic views/pride in their citizenship" might want to hang a flag for reasons you would at least not feel obligated to oppose. That ought to be a place where the two of you could meet in the middle (especially if he wouldn't be dramatically opposed to flying a Pride flag under it, which is a pretty strong signal that it's *not* right-wing posturing.) We had some discussion about that last time we had a flag question here: https://agonyaunt.dreamwidth.org/547286.html

However, if he wants to fly any flag on the kind of large stationary flagpole that might come with a house, I would stand firm on a) he has to fly the US flag above it, and b) he has to follow the US flag code, and c) he is solely responsible for following the US flag code, and if he doesn't you will be taking all the flags down and disposing of them (according to the US flag code.)

[oursin]

Hmmmm - generally abhors all politicians - but doesn't sound don't-carey apolitical with it. I'm wondering whether he's more 'we should be having ruthlessly scientific management of society by technocrats' or 'we should all be living as if society were not a thing at all (until the bears come down and eat up because the rubbish is not collected)'.

Neither of these is an auspicious sign.

[movingfinger]

Do not buy a house with this man.

[movingfinger]

He doesn't need a flagpole to fly a flag. The little brackets work just fine. That said, the flag should properly be taken in at sunset and not left up to beat itself to shreds.

That said, if she wants to put up with him, it has to be either the American flag or a cute seasonal one with sunflowers, fall leaves, daffodils, etc. on it.

In the NE at least it is not uncommon to have an American flag on the bracket for holidays. Waterfront homes also often have flagpoles, used for US flags, yacht club flags, and/or signal flags. Flying a US flag all the time is either "homeowner too elderly or indifferent to go out and put it up and take it down" or "dogwhistle" and Boyfriend here sounds like a "dogwhistle" type.

[mrissa]

The "everyone has to agree" rule is true at our house although it has only applied to political signs. But at our house it's "we all have to agree that we actively and positively support this candidate, none of us is just voting for this candidate grudgingly because it's the best option available to us," which feels very different to me from "I'm afraid that I'm moving in with a right-wing troll." Do not move in with a right-wing troll. Also do not move in with a person you can't have the "all in agreement" conversation with, but..."I'm afraid of what flag he will fly" says to me that this person is probably spending social occasions desperately worried of what their partner will say to their friends, which is no way to live.

[ethelmay]

I guess I don't understand how you get to the point of buying a house with someone if you're that incompatible and also not married. I hope LW has good legal advice. (There are reasons to not get married, but usually you have to be even more sure this is a good person to buy a house with.)

[matsushima]

I wasn't going to click through but then I saw the "what the actual fuck?" tag.

I don't understand straight people. I'm not saying you have to agree with your partner on politics 100% of the time but if LW is "drawing a line" about not hanging a Confederate flag (implying her BF wants to)… why are you dating this man, again? Why would you even consider buying a house with someone who might want to fly a Confederate flag outside your front door?

[frenzy]

>and kind of just agree not to talk about a few other things.

tbh this in and of itself would be a dealbreaker for me.

[harpers_child]

Do not buy a house with this guy. You have chunks of your beliefs you can't talk about together. This is a sign that you are incompatible. The flagpole worry is a symptom of this. Do not buy a house together until after you resolve the can't talk to each other problem.

[likeaduck]

From the Captain Awkward archives:

This is an amalgamation of actual letters in my actual inbox:

Dear Captain Awkward, I’m dating someone wonderful who really loves me, he (IT’S ALWAYS HE, DON’T @ ME) but he has terrible political views, like, he thinks immigrants and black people and women and gay people and trans people aren’t really people something something about biological inferiority and it’s okay to violence them but only when they deserve it? I know it’s just how he grew up, he has a good heart and doesn’t really mean it, Confederate flags/”traditional” views are just part of his heritage. I’ve tried discussing this with him but he always talks over me. Can you help me explain my views better? I’m sure I can convince him if I just try hard enough? Can this relationship work?

So, about those pesky Nazis again.

[jack]

Is he equally ok with *you* flying a flag supporting *your* political opinions even if he disagrees? Assuming not, he's going to be even more unreasonable as a life partner and house partner -- financially entangling with him is going to be bad! (If it's really ONLY a flag then dodging the issue makes sense but I don't believe it is)