NYT editorial board member ‘disturbed’ by ‘dozens of American flags’ over weekend: Country needs to 'separate America from whiteness'

A New York Times editorial board member said that she was "disturbed" upon seeing "dozens of American flags" on Americans' vehicles over the weekend and insisted that the country needs to "separate America from whiteness."

What are the details?

Mara Gay, also an MSNBC analyst, appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Tuesday, where she recalled the concerning moment a summer weekend turned into a horror movie.

"The reality is here that we have a large percentage of the American — I don't know how big it is, but we have tens of millions of Trump voters who continue to believe that their rights as citizens are under threat by simple virtue of having to share the democracy with others," Gay told "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski. "I think as long as they see Americanness as the same as one with whiteness, this is going to continue. We have to figure out how to get every American a place at the table in this democracy, but how to separate Americanness, America, from whiteness. Until we can confront that and talk about that, this is really going to continue.

"I was on Long Island this weekend, visiting a really dear friend, and I was really disturbed," Gay continued.

Gay said that she became "disturbed" when she saw vehicles sporting American flags, and vocal support for former President Donald Trump — including outright disdain for President Joe Biden.

"I saw, you know, dozens and dozens of pickup trucks with expletives against Joe Biden on the back of them, Trump flags and in some cases, just dozens of American flags, which is also just disturbing, because essentially the message was clear: It was 'This is my country. This is not your country. I own this,'" Gay continued.

She added that what's even more concerning, perhaps, is the "large percentage of Americans" who are insistent on pretending that "this isn't the threat that it is."

"[U]ntil we're ready to have that conversation, this is going to continue," she insisted. “What really is concerning to me as well is, it's not just Democrats in Congress. I think there's a large percentage of Americans, even some of my colleagues in journalism, who are invested in some way in pretending that this isn't the threat that it is. That is the real concern. Because, you know, the Trump voters who are not going to get on board with democracy, they're a minority. You can marginalize them, long-term. But if we don't take the threat seriously, then I think we're all in really bad shape."