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.
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