D.C. Flag Sales Soar amid Trump’s Federal Crackdown on The City

Joe Heim / The Washington Post

11:40 JST, September 2, 2025

D.C. residents, in response to President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the District, are embracing a nearly 90-year-old symbol of the city to signal their opposition.

The D.C. flag – three red stars atop two red bars on a white background – has been flying off the shelves of area stores ever since Trump ordered a federal takeover of law enforcement in the District on Aug. 11. In a matter of days, the banner became one of the hottest – and hardest to get – ways for locals to express anger with the administration and pride in their city.

Joe Tartaglione, who works as the buyer at True Value Hardware in the Dupont Circle neighborhood, said the store didn’t even carry D.C. flags until customers started asking for them after Trump’s announcement. Since Aug. 13, the store has sold 24, and a sign attached to the cash register announces, “We Have D.C. Flags.”

For now, anyway.

“They’re hard to get, the price has gone up 30 percent, and the delivery time is extended,” Tartaglione said. Full-size banners sell for $17.99, but small versions on a wooden stick are available for $2.29.

Five other hardware stores in the District said they, too, were either out of the flags or have struggled to keep them in stock.

Even the leading online marketplaces can’t promise overnight delivery. At last check, you’d be lucky to get one in a week.

Jennifer, a 10-year D.C. resident who asked that her last name not be used out of concerns for her family’s safety, had never flown any kind of flag at the Capitol Hill home where she lives with her husband and two young children. Early last week, angered by the president’s repeated characterizations of the District as dirty and crime-ridden and wanting a way to show pride in the city, the 39-year-old decided it was time to raise the D.C. flag.

But when she called around to local stores, she found all of them had sold out. Her husband learned that Alamo Flags, a distributor in Falls Church, Virginia, had some available. Then Jennifer reached out on a neighborhood Signal chat to see whether anyone else wanted one.

“I was not expecting a whole lot, but basically everybody jumped in,” she said. “So when my husband went out to Falls Church, he effectively cleaned them out. I want to say we got 10. As more flags go up, more people want them.”

Jennifer said it has been difficult seeing the District portrayed in such a negative light. “I love the city, and it makes me sad that the narrative has shifted and it’s sort of out of our control,” she said “We’re a city. We have crime. No one is disputing that. But it is not a hellscape.”

Ali Durrani, of Alamo Flags, says the company has noticed a shift in sales. “Normally it’s USA flags leading the flag sales but DC flags has taken that spot recently,” he said in an email.

The growth spurt in D.C. flag ownership is visible across the District as new flags flutter from flagpoles in Anacostia, billow from balconies in Cathedral Heights and wave from apartment windows in Mount Pleasant. One, in a front yard near H Street NE, is emblazoned with the words “Free DC” and held up by a towering skeleton wearing sunglasses.

When Alfredo Vasquez’s D.C. flag arrived two weeks ago, he placed it on the rear of his house – which faces a busy street – in Southwest Washington. “I figured it would be a visible spot and the people who are occupying will see that flag flying,” said Vasquez, a lawyer who has lived in the city for 16 years.

The message he hopes it sends, he said, “is that this is our home. And we can’t be silenced or forgotten. Even though D.C. citizens may not have representation in Congress or even have enough votes to sway an election, we have a voice and we have a presence. And this is our city.”

Vasquez moved to the United States from Peru when he was 16 and is a U.S. citizen. He says the surge of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement into the District has been scary and frustrating. In the past, he went for runs in his neighborhood or on the National Mall and never felt a need to carry an ID. Now he feels as though he has to have one with him at all times. “The thought of having any misunderstanding with an ICE officer or police officer gives me pause,” he said, in reference to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Officially adopted in 1938, the D.C. flag has influences that trace back to the family shield of George Washington’s third great-grandfather. Part of what makes the flag so appealing is its design, said Peter Ansoff, past president of the North American Vexillological Association, which bills itself as the world’s largest organization of flag enthusiasts and scholars. In 2004, the association ranked the D.C. flag as the best of 150 American city flags.

“One of the things that NAVA is interested in is how the design of a flag influences its recognition and its popularity,” Ansoff said. “And the D.C. flag is a splendid example of that because it’s a very distinctive flag and you see it all over the city, not just on flags but on advertising signs and murals and all kinds of things.”

That the flag would be embraced by D.C. residents as a symbol of unity or even defiance doesn’t surprise Ansoff. “That’s kind of what flags are for,” he said.

The creases are still fresh on the D.C. flag flying in front of Bill Podolski’s home in Northeast Washington. He ordered it early last week and put it up as soon as it arrived.

“This Trump takeover really stoked something in me,” said Podolski, 42, a music teacher who has lived with his husband in the Trinidad neighborhood for three years. He bought the flag to “celebrate our D.C. pride, our independence and as the smallest sign of solidarity with the city.”

Podolski was particularly affronted by Trump’s negative descriptions of the city. “The Trump narrative is just not the city I know,” he said. “I feel lucky to live here. Yes, Trinidad has its moments, but we have great neighbors, new and old. We walk our dog and we feel very safe.”

Trump’s decision to put D.C. police under federal control, step up immigration arrests in the city and order more than 2,200 National Guard troops to patrol the streets of the capital has renewed calls for D.C. statehood. The city’s 700,000 residents pay federal taxes but have no voting representation in the House or the Senate.

“We know that access to our democracy is tenuous,” D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said at a news conference the day Trump announced the crackdown. “This is why you have heard me, and many, many Washingtonians before me, advocate for full statehood for the District of Columbia.”

As the city has struggled to stand up to the administration, some residents flying the flag say that statehood and representation for the District have become much more acute concerns. Michael Mugo, 33, and Ryan Payne, 36, recently received their D.C. flag and put it up in front of their Northwest Washington home.

“We’re pro-D.C., and we wanted to show it,” Mugo said.

“And we’re tired of the takeover,” Payne chimed in. “I never thought we’d be in a position where statehood would be so important. Now we’re there. Trump is just using the District as a pawn.”

About 80 percent of D.C. residents oppose Trump’s executive order to federalize law enforcement in the city, with about 7 in 10 opposing it “strongly,” according to a Washington Post poll. And 78 percent of residents say they feel safe or very safe in their neighborhoods.

In Columbia Heights, one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods and home to a large immigrant population, D.C. flags are spotted on main thoroughfares and quiet side streets. The neighborhood has been the site of numerous immigration raids in which federal officers, many wearing masks, have made arrests as residents have filmed them on their phones and demanded they identify themselves.

One Columbia Heights homeowner said that he typically switches out his D.C. flag with one from his home state but that he has been leaving the D.C. flag out since Trump’s announcement.

“I do see it as a statement in this current political climate,” said the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. “It feels dangerous to raise any political dissent.”

He is worried about the city’s future and where the country is headed. The flag, he said, will stay up.