There is also the pledge history first accompanied by “Balch/Bellamy” Salute, which is the historical Roman Salute adopted by Italian fascists and the German Nazi Party 1923-26.
Despite the obvious reference to fascism for decades, it wasn’t until 1942 that Congress got rid of the Nazi salute for the Pledge.
We had to recite the pledge when I was in elementary school. What it taught me is that adults must be pretty dumb if they think forcing kids to recite a text by rote will make kids believe the text. It taught me to be subversive rather than to respect authority.
Since I live in CT, and this is NOT a Trump-friendly state, I had to look up the 2016 election results for this town. Haddam went for Trump, by about eight percentage points (51%-43%), with a total of about 5,000 votes cast. On the other hand, Haddam is only a few miles away from, and borders, Middletown, which went for Clinton 61%-33%, with about 20,000 votes cast. I applaud this town official for taking a stand in hostile territory, even though all the rural Trump voters in this state are surrounded and vastly outnumbered by Democrats.