I get how symbols are powerful. They hold meaning. People live and die for them. A flag is that type of symbol.
But I don't think it's political "courage," or some kind of "brave act" for a politician to decide it's now time to bring that Old Confederate flag down. I see it more as a practical reality. Finally accepted. This is not courage.
BTW - Josh Marshall digs into the history and finds that old flag was always understood as the White Man's Flag. Explicitly, implicitly, racist.
So to see all these folks on the bandwagon of bringing the flag down, rolling it up and hiding it in the closet, just seems like "grandstanding." I mean, sure, take those flags down. They are offensive, a symbol of division and hate and represent a time that supposedly no longer exists. This all should have happened long, long ago.
But we are a country so Gun Sick we act as if taking a flag down somehow addresses an issue. The gun sickness is so embedded we can't/won't even think about how to fix our gun problem. The flag thing almost seems like a calculated side-show.
Don't look at the gun in the closet. What gun?!