• BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Trump nominating a Literal Nazi to lead our Military is PROOF that DEMOCRATS were Overreacting!

    • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Mango Mussolini and his selections are identical to the worms Mao, Adolph, Joseph and Hideki chose. However, the Nazis were not religious in the traditional sense and they threw plenty Catholic and Protestant priests into their concentration camps. The ones who agreed, wore the cross next to the swastika.

    • affiliate@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      my theory is that this is all one big power move from trump, to show people what he can get away with. i don’t think he cares that much about the individual people he’s nominating, he more so cares about showing people that he can pick literally anyone he wants and no one will stop him.

    • Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      It literally seems like he’s just picking a mix of Republicans who are most notorious on social media and people who would make Putin the most happy, so you’re not wrong but I don’t think it’s the actual criterion he’s using.

    • Crikeste@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      Trump simply gave them permission to remove their masks. America is, and always has been, and always will be, a racist country founded on racist principles.

  • danc4498@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • 52fighters@lemmy.sdf.org
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      1 month ago

      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].

        • danc4498@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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?

      • Miaou@jlai.lu
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        1 month ago

        Only USAians will see somebody with a flag tattoo and not think “this is fascist scum”.

      • Adm_Drummer@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Deus Vult has indeed been co-opted by white supremacists along with a lot of crusader/christian symbolism.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          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.

      • Aksamit@slrpnk.net
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        1 month ago

        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).

        • anachronist@midwest.social
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          1 month ago

          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.

          • nelly_man@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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.

              • nelly_man@lemmy.world
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                1 month ago

                White supremacist anti-Muslim narratives generally refer to Islam as an invading force that isn’t just incompatible with Western society but is also an active threat to Western society and cultural norms. In this context, white supremacists have used Crusader-themed imagery and rhetoric, like the Jerusalem Cross, the Knights Templar and “Deus Vult,” as dog whistles to promote anti-Muslim hate.

                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.

          • Hoimo@ani.social
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            1 month ago

            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”.

            • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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              1 month ago

              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.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

          • danc4498@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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.

          • danc4498@lemmy.world
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            1 month ago

            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!

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        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.

        • TheHighRoad@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          It also means he’s a terrible Christian because Christians are not supposed to tattoo themselves 🙄

    • Glitterbomb@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Might be an unpopular comment, but I googled the Swastika and it appears to be more of a religious symbol than anything.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        😂 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.

    • horse_battery_staple@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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

      White supremacist anti-Muslim narratives generally refer to Islam as an invading force that isn’t just incompatible with Western society, but is also an active threat to Western society and cultural norms. In this context, white supremacists have used Crusader-themed imagery and rhetoric, like the Jerusalem Cross, the Knights Templar and “Deus Vult,” as dog whistles to promote anti-Muslim hate

    • prettybunnys@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      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.

  • Prandom_returns@lemm.ee
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    1 month ago

    Yeah, the news-media is salivating on all the clicks it’s receiving right now.

    Almost if it’s benefiting them that Trump was elected. Hmm.

  • steel_nomad@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    “Trump Accountability War Room”. Because suddenly presidential accountability is VERY important.

    …wait, what?

    Also, using the term “war room” for everything. Peak USA.

      • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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        1 month ago

        It’s important to me that y’all realize war rooms are a real thing, have been for centuries if not millennia, and weren’t invented for movies or news.

      • _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 month ago

        If that’s what you got out of his comment, maybe you should stick to the meme communities, then at least you can pretend your not understanding is just a bit you’re doing.

      • steel_nomad@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Yeah I think you missed my point there, scooter. I’m questioning the reasoning. As in, "after hundreds of years, you are saying that ONLY NOW do we need an “Office of Accountability”? Boggles my mind. Where was this 200 FUCKING YEARS AGO? Oh, “BUT ITS TRUMP, SOMEONE NEEDS TO KEEP AN EYE ON HIM” Holy fuck. Everyone is just

        So

        Stupid

    • Auli@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      Just copied Alberta Canada. We have had a war room for years now. A war room can’t climate activists I think it is.

  • The4th@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    The Iron Cross goes all the way back to the state of Prussia. Long before the Nazi’s. There are probably so many reason to criticize this guy that will cause productive conversation that can be used to have a better informed voting class. Just screaming racist because of tattoo is just silly and makes no one take you seriously.

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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      1 month ago

      “The guy officially cited for his extremist views with the big gigantic Nazi tattoos who was just put into power by a self-described dictator deserves the benefit of a doubt”

      Absolutely not.

    • magamus@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      I think it’s more the point of do you believe that this person who has the tattoos has them because of the possible history before the Nazis and what it represented or because the Nazis co-opted the symbol for their purposes and he’s representing their ideals.

      While it may be true that there are other reasons to also criticize, I believe those who think the latter would take it seriously. I have more trouble believing someone in this day and age has the tattoos to represent the historical aspect of the symbol.

      • The4th@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        I believe screaming racist has been over used at this point and no listens. Especially since Trump carried so much of the minority vote. Yes this may resonate with the left. But just shut you out. Same when the Republicans scream communist. No one takes that seriously.
        All I have learned from this thread is this guy has an Iron Cross tattoo and some people view that as racist.

    • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      I’m sorry what?!

      That level of disingenuous knot tying is utterly baffling.

      You know damn well that after WW2, all of those symbols ostensibly became inextricably linked with the Nazi party. Its the same reason a Swastika no longer automatically conjures images of Hindu and Buddhist peace.

      Pretending that its possible that this idiot is somehow repping his pride of Wilhelm II and the glorious Prussian history is so unbelievably intellectually dishonest that it actually somehow manages to be even worse than being flat out racist.

      At least Racists are honest. This…whatever this idiotic attempt at obsfucation was that you just shat into our lives is just pedantry that even racists would mock you for.

      • The4th@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Just keep calling everyone Nazi. See how much it helps. Backing people into a corner and forcing this label onto them is only going to make them adapt the label and become the very thing you hate.
        76 million people voted for Trump. Calling them names is not going to move the needle. Like what do you expect you call them Nazi and then they beg for forgiveness and then go read a Bernie Sanders book?

        • Hemingways_Shotgun@lemmy.ca
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          1 month ago

          I’m not calling everyone a Nazi.

          I’m saying the guy with tattoos on his chest of symbols that have been associated with Nazis since the late 1930s is 99.99999% likely to be a Nazi and not a long lost member of Prussian nobility.

          Pretending that because there’s a .0000001% chance that his tattoos aren’t Nazi inspired just because Prussia existed, is purposeful pedantry, which IMO is worse than outright racism.

          See, you’re not stupid. You’re the worst kind of person. Your not smart. But your not stupid. You have just enough trivia in your head that you can muddle any argument with pedantry just enough that stupid people might read it and think… “hmmm…maybe it WAS a Prussia tattoo.” even though you know damn well that a .0000001% chance is as good as 0%. It’s dishonest, it’s immoral, and it takes advantage of people who don’t have the critical thinking skills to call out your bullshit. You are worse than racists because at least racists are honest about it.