Concerns are mounting over Trump’s pick to lead the Pentagon, Fox News host and military veteran Pete Hegseth. CBS News reports that Hegseth was one of 12 National Guard members who were removed as guards for President Biden’s 2021 inauguration over possible extremist ties. Hegseth has tattoos associated with the white supremacist and neo-Nazi movements, including what’s known as a Jerusalem cross, a symbol used by Christian nationalists.
In related news, the government watchdog Accountable.US announced it’s launching a “Trump Accountability War Room” to monitor Trump’s appointments and executive actions as he takes up his second term.
Might be an unpopular comment, but I googled the Jerusalem cross and it appears to be more of a religious symbol than anything.
Saying he has tattoos linked with white nationalists is just sensationalism. And it has gotten the exact response in this thread that it wanted.
It’s also used fairly prominently in the episcopal church in the USA, I grew up with that symbol and it had nothing to do with white nationalism / christofascism
Deus Vult added to his collection does add some awfully strong attribution to them being the dog whistles I bet they are.
It’s been coopted by the far right for a while now. Pete is not a Polish Babushka, the symbol has a different meaning to him, here’s specific reference to the Jerusalem Cross amd deus vult here. https://www.mccaininstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/white-supremacy-and-anti-government-groups-read-ahead-materials.pdf
Might be an unpopular comment, but I googled the Swastika and it appears to be more of a religious symbol than anything.
😂 Clearly you googled neither… literally every link for “swastika” mentions nazis. Google “Jerusalem cross” and the only posts you see related to white nationalism are Reddit posts with people asking if the symbol is related to white nationalism/nazis and nearly every comment saying it is not.
I am looking at other photos. I can also see “Ne Desit Virtus” (Let Valor Not Fail) with a sword. That’s a symbol from the 187th Infantry Regiment. I also see the Chi Rho symbol, a Greek symbol for the name of Christ. Another tattoo is “MDCCLXXV” for 1775. Above that tattoo is an American Flag with a gun superimposed on it. I am not sure if these mean a recalling of the US War for Independence. The gun looks modern but could also serve as a bridge to the modern military of the US. On his other arm is “Deus Vult.”
Broadly speaking, these tattoos suggest both military service and Christian identity.
Not found are any symbols I’ve seen identified with White Nationalism. No Valknot, swastika, black sun, 88 symbol, Confederate symbolism, etc.
Edit: The photo I was looking at is here: [https://i.imgur.com/kkroDES.png].
Only USAians will see somebody with a flag tattoo and not think “this is fascist scum”.
Dude is definitely a nut, but when we start throwing around terms like “white nationalists” for things that are absolutely not white nationalism, it dilutes the impact of claims about people who legitimately are white nationalists.
Political echo chambers have been in “Two Minutes of Hate” mode for years now. Throw every insult imaginable at your opponents. Even if it doesn’t fit, even if it doesn’t make sense. Just hold someone up and go “This is the bad man! Boo the bad man! Boooooo!” Anyone who cares ask “Why are we booing? And what makes this man bad?” Is immediately silenced by others because it’s just so obvious he’s a bad man. Look at all the other people booing him!
Meanwhile his face is digitally changed to a bleating goat, and the people cheer.
This happens on both right and left wing echo chambers.
https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/ Christo-fascists can hate just like Nazis can.
Hi, I’ve never heard of adl.org, but I searched for Jerusalem cross on this site and found no results. Does that work as confirmation that this symbol is NOT a white nationalist symbol?
Deus Vult has indeed been co-opted by white supremacists along with a lot of crusader/christian symbolism.
Almost like its coded so as to not blatantly say “I’m a white supremist” while also clearly signaling to people he is.
Are people just learning about plausible deniability?
Now that said, sure this could be a nothing burger, but when coupled to be right wing…
What’s that saying?
You find me a nazi I can sure bet they’d be voting Republican.
No the people in this thread are deliberate nazis trying to normalize that shit and your instances are such trash that they don’t get moderated
https://www.adultliteracyleague.org/resources/
as if the crusaders were egalitarian
They might mean other tattoos, he seems to have a collection.
It still makes him a religious weirdo, possibly with a bizarre crusade fetish. Not a great look.
The article specifically mentioned that tattoo and no other ones… I’m not saying this dude is qualified for the job. There’s probably tons of legit reasons to hate this pick.
This article is just rage bate, though. And judging by this thread it is a successful one.
It also means he’s a terrible Christian because Christians are not supposed to tattoo themselves 🙄
Yes and the swastika is the symbol of well-being
Yes, and any cross is a symbol of white nationalism because they were used by the KKK.
Not every symbol used by racist people is a symbol of racism. You gave the one most extreme example where a symbol was co-opted and can never mean anything else again.
Like the universal ok symbol. My good that was so stupid.
Exactly. I had a guy I worked with that used examples of liberals complaining about the OK symbol as an excuse to ignore every awful thing Trump did and said during his 2016 election and while he was in office.
I’m not saying he wouldn’t have done that anyway, but we make it so easy for them to ignore us!
And you gave an example of why dog whistles work, plausible deniability.
Honest question, are there examples of this symbol being used by white nationalists regularly?
I’ve done some light googling and looked at more photos of white nationalist rallies than I ever want and I didn’t see this symbol in any of them. Even adl.org doesn’t mention this cross.
there’s specific reference to the Jerusalem Cross here. https://www.mccaininstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/white-supremacy-and-anti-government-groups-read-ahead-materials.pdf The Adl link is to look up other terms in general
Not to detract from this guy likely yes being a massive nazi piece of shit-
-but many deeply religious Polish Catholics who lived through WW2 and the atrocities, had (maybe still have, idk all my grandparents and aunties who did are now dead) Jerusalem crosses on their walls, usually displayed alongside their many JP2 pictures, crucifixes and black madonna’s.
Also not to say that many of these Polish Catholics weren’t also massive racists, but I’m pretty sure the Jerusalem crosses they displayed were a Catholic thing for them rather than a white supremacy thing.
Edit: The only tattoos any of them had were id numbers though. None would have ever considered getting huge Jerusalem cross tattoos (maybe a small tastefully done portrait of JP2 crossed the mind of one or two).
I grew up Catholic and my family was mostly Irish and Italians but I never saw that particular cross. Even Polish people (lots of them here in Chicago) I knew tended to have things like the black madonna or our lady of sorrows.
Also this guy isn’t Polish.
I think the appeal to the far right would be its similarity to the iron cross. When I saw it on the guy, having never seen the Jerusalem cross before despite my catholic background, I honestly thought it was an iron cross.
It’s a bit like people in Europe who wear the confederate flag and when asked claim that they just really like that corny US sitcom from the 70s with an orange car in it. Of course that’s just a plausible cover since overt European fascist or nazi symbols are illegal, so instead they fly the battle flag of a racist slave-state from a different continent.
It’s been coopted by the far right for a while now. Pete is not a Polish Babushka, the symbol has a different meaning to him.
https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/
Were you linking to a specific entry in their database? The link took me to the database as a whole, and I couldn’t find any mention of the Jerusalem Cross when searching it.
When searching elsewhere, I see similar results as the above commenter. There’s mostly discussions of its Christian meaning and some reddit posts that argue that it’s a symbol of hate due to its association with the crusades.
However, there was a different post from somebody who got a tattoo of it and was worried when people said it gave them Nazi-ish vibes. The commenters on the post assured him that it’s not a white supremacist symbol, but it was probably reminding people of the Iron Cross.
Hey sorry yeah, there’s specific reference to the Jerusalem Cross here. The Adl link is to look up other terms in general
White nationalist rhetoric moves quickly https://www.mccaininstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/white-supremacy-and-anti-government-groups-read-ahead-materials.pdf
Edit: corrected the link
Ah yes, there it is. That does seem to correlate with one of the reddit posts that I saw, but they didn’t seem to agree that this symbol had been adopted by contemporary hate groups. They merely indicated that it is controversial due to its association with the crusades. However, that lack of understanding outside of hate groups is the point of using these historical symbols as dog-whistles.
Yes this is how dog-whistles work. If you want more context you can check out what the SPLC and Unicorn Riot have been up to
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2024/08/19/we-will-fight-soldier-waging-war-against-america-fort-liberty
There’s also a network of folk in WP and Nationalist discord and truth social etc. that are collecting and reporting megadata to the authorities. Which is difficult as the FBI often do nothing unless there’s CSAM or other pedo shit going on.
There’s a version of the Jerusalem Cross used by Episcopalian service members, according to Wikipedia. I’m not American, so I don’t know the exact connotation of the symbol on that side of the pond, it could still be harmless. As an outsider, I’d associate it with the crusades (or the country of Georgia), but it doesn’t have to be intended that way.
Now, the fact that he’s a Trump appointee automatically makes him suspect, of course, but it’s less like “He has a Nazi tattoo, therefore Trump appointed a Nazi” and more “Trump appoints Nazis, therefore the tattoo is a Nazi tattoo”.
It’s a symbol that’s been coopted by hate groups. I understand the reticence to call it a hate symbol as it can be used by cultural people in a different context. The far right took Celtic runes and the Celtic cross from me and my people and turned it into a symbols of hate. They’ve done it with Norse runes as well. It’s what they do, the swastika was originally a symbol of peace and trust.
So yes context matters. Trump appoints alt right nut jobs who twist the meaning of cultural symbols so that they can spread a message of hate. This is what I am upset about, and likely others are as well.