Brehm: Minnesota’s new flag is ugly and divisive. It deserves another do-over.

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One of my favorite places on the planet is Crosslake, Minn., where my family has had a summer cabin for nearly 40 years. It’s a beautiful and peaceful place where not a whole lot changes. These days, that includes the state flags area residents there fly.

Despite the fact the DFL trifecta — with control of the House, Senate and governor’s office — changed Minnesota’s official banner and seal last year, it’s hard to find any evidence of that anywhere in Crow Wing County. The 1957 version lives very much on in the Brainerd Lakes area, including at the end of the Brehm family’s dock. And, as this newspaper has reported, such is the case in many parts of greater Minnesota.

This is a problem. There seems to be growing agreement that the divisiveness of recent years needs to fade, and that Minnesotans must come together more. But how can we begin to do that when even our state ensign is a source of controversy and a symbol of partisanship?

A flag is more than just cloth and pigment and should be a basis of unity and honor. Like the beautiful State Capitol in St. Paul, our state flag should transcend politics and be a symbol that conservative and liberal Minnesotans alike hold up with pride.

So how did we become a house divided between two flags? A consensus had been gathering in recent years that the state flag and seal should change. The mid-20th century version, some said, was both boring and culturally insensitive.

I myself was open to doing better stylistically; change isn’t always a bad thing. Both Mississippi and Utah recently redesigned their flags beautifully, and I was excited at the prospect of the North Star State following suit.

When the DFL took over total control of Minnesota’s state government in 2023, they formed the State Emblems Redesign Commission to head up the effort. Fine. But while official design submissions were accepted from the public, little in the way of commentary and feedback was. It was a flawed process that produced a flawed product that no one seems to like.

The flag itself, I hate to say it, is just plain ugly, and I haven’t met anyone — even my very most progressive urbanist friends — who can say anything more positive than “meh” about it. The cobalt and turquoise combo is harsh and unappealing. And it’s as if the artist went out of his way to make sure the design was divorced from anything in Minnesota’s past.

Should there not be some semblance of history represented on it? Yes, our state’s past is imperfect. But most of Minnesota’s history remains very much worth honoring. A writer for the National Review described the new state flag damningly: “It conveys only that the state it is supposed to represent is unremarkable.” That should not be so.

A state as great as ours should not settle for this mediocrity. The now-divided state Legislature should reconvene on this next year and take a mulligan. Yes, redoing the flag again will be a little expensive and cumbersome. But it should be easy to find somewhere to modestly cut some waste from Minnesota’s bloated budget to pay for the project, and continuing to have a flag that only certain segments of the state rally around is a price our too-destabilized democracy cannot bear.

Greater unity will be worth every penny. Certainly, our state faces challenges more important than the motif of fabric we hoist up the flagpoles here behind Old Glory. But our ability to tackle those challenges depends on our being able to come together and compromise more. Coalescing around a new flag design all Minnesotans can have a say in and hopefully most will like would be a great way to kick that off.

And it would be refreshing, quite frankly, for politicians in St. Paul for once to just acknowledge they got this flag thing wrong. What a concept — and one I think voters are starving for. “We didn’t do that quite right. Lesson learned. Let’s try again.” We could use a lot more of that kind of humility in our politics today on both sides of the aisle.

So, here’s my idea. A special bipartisan legislative committee could be created to appoint commissions — split evenly among registered Republicans and Democrats — in each of Minnesota’s eight congressional districts. Those commissions then would each select a final design, after receiving proposals from their constituents and holding public hearings, for submission to the Legislature, which would select the finalist among the eight designs. Given the even number of commissioners and their allotted political makeup, compromise will be key. Republicans will have an equal say in what navy-blue Minneapolis submits, and Democrats an equal say in what fire-engine red Brainerd selects. How refreshing!

If this concept takes hold, I’ll look forward to presenting my own suggestion: a simple navy-blue background with the new state seal affixed at the center — an earlier version of the new emblem. I do think Minnesota’s official motto, “L’Étoile du Nord,” and founding date of 1858 are both worthy of tribute and belong back on the flag.

Many argued that while the new state pennant was initially unpopular, Minnesotans would grow to like it, and it would weave itself into our patriotic fabric. But the opposite seems to be true, with more communities around the state outright rejecting our newfangled and modernistic banner and digging in on flying its predecessor in perpetuity.

Continuing with the status quo means some Minnesotans will fly the poorly designed official state flag with indifference while many won’t at all. We should do better. Let’s start over and create a flag every Minnesota community has a say in and can be proud of for generations to come.