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Trump’s Pick to Lead U.S. Military Has Tattoos Linked to White Supremacists and Nazis
(www.democracynow.org)
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this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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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.
Edit:
For the pitchfork wielding lemmings, if you search for “Jerusalem cross” on ADL Hate Symbol Searcg, it returns ZERO results.
Hating on this guy because you misinterpreted a tattoo that he has only makes you and people like you look ridiculous. And when the next guy stands up and says actual hateful things, WE won’t have a voice because YOU wasted it on garbage news stories like this one.
Yes and the swastika is the symbol of well-being
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.
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/
Edit:
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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!