Is there a word meaning "to support something as if you are waving flags for it"?

Question

Is there a word meaning "to support something as if you are waving flags for it"?
I remember I may have encountered a word "flagwave" somewhere, in a sentence looking like "Do not flagwave for a technology". But I could not find this word in dictionaries, and only found this usage in one piece of news:

The Guardian’s appraisal of Emily Fridlund’s contender, History Of Wolves, was simply “strikingly impotent’. The New York Times, which you would expect to flagwave for virtuoso American writer George Saunders, moaned that Lincoln in the Bardo – by some distance the Man Booker favourite – would have “benefited immensely from some judicious pruning”.

So generally, I'm looking for a word meaning "to support something as if you are waving flags for it" that can be used as in "[?] for an ideology" or "[?] for our team" (this can be literally waving flags).

Additionally, if I say "to flagwave for sth", will native speakers get the meaning of the phrase?

Cascabel · Accepted Answer

cheer

to give a loud shout of approval or encouragement:

Cambridge
Think of cheerleaders, waving their pom-poms at the home team audience.

Here we see North Carolina cheerleaders chanting and spelling out  spelling out "TRUMP".
So we could say
"The New York Times, which you would expect to cheerlead for virtuoso American writer George Saunders..."

to urge on or encourage especially by shouts

Merriam Webster

Edwin Ashworth · Answer

Possibly you'll get no closer than champion.
It's perhaps rather old-fashioned, but that perhaps hints at the days of chivalry, with all the pennants flying. I'll give Merriam-Webster's relevant definitions of the more common noun first:

champion ...
2: a militant advocate or defender

a champion of civil rights

3: WARRIOR, FIGHTER

a champion of his king

4: one that does battle for another's rights or honor

God will raise me up a champion — Sir Walter Scott; Ivanhoe

which inform the senses of the verb

champion [transitive verb]
1: to act as militant supporter of : UPHOLD, ADVOCATE

always champions the cause of the underdog

2: to protect or fight for as a champion

championed the ladies chivalrously in the tilts

Jim Simson · Answer

What immediately comes to mind for me is the word semaphore used metaphorically in the verb form.

Semaphore is a system of sending messages by using two flags. (Collins)

an apparatus for visual signaling (as by the position of one or more movable arms) (Websters)

to signal by semaphore (Collins)

Used metaphorically, it may get you what you need.
Using your example: "The New York Times, which you would expect to semaphore for virtuoso American writer George Saunders"
Another example: "He semaphored every emotion, belting love songs with outspread arms or pounding his hand on his heart."
For other such examples see here.

Jim Simson · Answer

Just a shot in the dark, but could you be thinking of unflagging?

If you describe something such as support, effort, or enthusiasm as unflagging, you mean that it does not stop or get less as time passes. (Collins Dictionary)

not changing or becoming weaker. His unflagging enthusiasm was an inspiration for all of us. (Macmillan)

showing no signs of weariness even after long hard effort (Websters)

Websters gives this example:

"being rewarded for the unflagging zeal with which she led the fund-raising campaign"

Is there a word meaning "to support something as if you are waving flags for it"?

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