LONDON, ENGLAND – Under American attack after Oprah’s shocking interview with Meghan Markle and Prince Harry provided strong evidence of continued racism within the monarch, Queen Elizabeth ordered the Gadsden flag to be flown above Buckingham Palace.
The storied yellow flag, bearing a coiled snake with the words “Don’t Tread On Me,” was created by independence-minded colonists in the run-up to the Revolutionary War though, over time, it has been claimed by a variety of right wing reactionary groups, including white supremacists like the KKK and the Tea Party that formed in response to the election of Barack Obama as the first Black president of the United States.
“It might seem unusual for a British monarch to use the imagery of American revolutionaries,” said royal watcher Pip Altringham. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and there is certainly no one more desperate than a thousand year old institution that once ruled the world and now can’t even figure out how to run a basic PR campaign.”
Nigel Pemberton, the palace spokesman, strongly defended the choice to fly the flag. “The royal family has enough problems as it is. We’ve got adulterers, former Nazi sympathizers and at least one legitimate sex offender. So the last thing we need right now is some outsider from America trying to hold us to account for our behavior. Cut us a break already!”
The flag order was accompanied by a royal declaration, which reads, “When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the familial bands which have connected them with their ungrateful grandson and his American commoner wife, we must solemnly declare that the British Crown is and of right ought to be free of the obligation to provide him and his family with basic security, access to mental health services, and the courtesy of an occasional supportive statement in the Daily Mail.”
American conservatives were quick to align themselves with the palace despite years claiming to be the party of patriotism and American exceptionalism. “Look,” said Tucker Carlson, “if I have to choose between supporting an undemocratic, elitist and un-American institution, or accepting valid claims of racism made by a Black woman, I think you can all understand why I made the choice that I did.”
