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 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.