I’m flying my flag at half-mast because I’m ashamed of what President Trump is doing to our country.

This is a sign calling us to repent, humble ourselves and push back for restoration, reclamation and transformation of our government and society.

President Trump and his minions are fomenting a cultural divide.

For Trump there are two kinds of people in the United States: people who work and take care of themselves, and people who want government to take care of them; normal people who are capitalists and “radical left socialists”; country, rural, suburban people and urban, inner-city people; White people and People of Color; Christians and liberals or those of other faiths; native-born people and immigrants; people here legally and those here illegally; people who hold fixed, traditional views of sexuality and those who see the reality of different ways of sexual expression.

Trump uses this divide he’s creating to separate us from each other, stoke the fervor of “his people” and persecute, vanquish, the “others.”

I refuse to allow Donald Trump and his policies to separate me from my neighbors near and far.

Some are MAGA. Some are diverse.

Therefore, as long as it takes to turn the tide, I will fly my U.S. flag at half-mast as a sign of shame, dread, humility, repentance, hope ... and community … except on Veterans Day and Memorial Day in honor of veterans who are real patriots … and I ask you to fly yours at half-mast as well.

Jeffrey Kistler

Heidelberg Twp.