signal of distress

The upside-down flag, once a signal of distress for sailors, has come to represent the “Stop the Steal” movement, which falsely claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump for Democrat Joe Biden.

In traditional protocol, an upside-down U.S. flag is used as a signal of distress, and on message boards and other online communities, right-wingers circulated the idea that inverting the flag for Trump would convey alarm about the purported theft of the election.

Flag Code says the flag should only be displayed upside-down as a “signal of distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.”

Flag Code—which is a matter of suggested protocol and not law—says an upside down is a signal of “distress.”

The next time OBS answers his son’s bat signal of distress, though, he may want to flip the exculpatory video so that viewers don’t have to watch it sideways.