The Not-So-Secret Underbelly Of Insurrectionists

If you don’t know it, you missed the news footage. Who among us didn’t see the white supremacy on full, brazen display when insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol? We saw swastika flags, and if you didn’t, you weren’t looking hard enough. We saw people wearing “6MWE” shirts, which stands for “6 Million Weren’t Enough,” referring to the victims of the Holocaust. According to NBC News, Robert Keith Packer was arrested in connection with the riots; he wore a “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt, complete with a skull and the camp’s motto, “Work brings freedom.” The back of the shirt read “Staff.” 1.1 million people were killed there during World War II, mostly Jews. Viking Man, who Rolling Stone mocks as “QAnon Shaman” and looks like a pathetic wastrel from Burning Man, is tatted with Norse symbols — long co-opted by the white supremacist movement.

We saw a sea of Confederate flags, long associated with a mythical American of white Christians and a heritage of Black oppression.

We saw the famous yellow Don’t Tread on Me Gadsden Flags, associated by the Anti-Defamation League with “anti-government circles” and used during Richmond protests with strong ties to racism.

Scratch the insurrectionist movement, and you find an ugly core of white supremacy.

It’s so bad, in fact, that Arnold Schwarzenegger compared it to Kristallnacht, or “the night of broken glass,” often seen as the wide start of the Holocaust in Germany.

What Symbols Did You See At The DC Riots?

The leader of The Proud Boys, a known anti-Semitic and white supremacist group, was wearing a Punisher skull over his American flag shirt. Because of those associations, along with its usage in the movie 2014 movie “American Sniper,” Inverse says it’s been adopted by the alt-right as a symbol of hatred: especially, since it’s being used by the Proud Boys, of anti-Semitism.

Additionally, the OK hand gesture was spotted many times in the crowd, according to Yahoo News. OK, as in extending your pinkie, middle, and ring fingers, then making a circle with your pointer finger and thumb, has been co-opted by the white power movement to mean… white power. See a diagram on the ADL website here.

There were also Confederate flags and Gadsden flags (“Don’t Tread on Me”) galore, which, with their obsession with a tradition of white, Christian America, automatically fall under the aegis of white supremacy

We also saw “III” a symbol of the “Three Percenters,” according to the ADL, an organization whose members aren’t necessarily associated with any militia groups, but who strongly support Trump and oppose “leftists/antifa, Muslims, and immigrants.” They also protested on the wrong side of protests against George Floyd’s murder.

Then There’s The Whole Q-Anon White Supremacy Thing…

Okay. A brief explanation. Q-Anon believes that a group of Satan-worshiping baddies (liberals, rich people, Hollywood elites) control everything, engage in child molestation and trafficking, and, according to The Guardian, harvest “a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children.” Trump is the messiah sent to bring them down. Narratives like this have popped up since the Romans accused Christians of killing children and drinking their blood; when Christians accused witches of the same during the Inquisition; when Pilgrims accused witches during the Salem witch trials; during the McMartin preschool case in the 1980s; during Pizzagate.

It also has ties back, The Guardian says, to a fake document: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. These documents claim to expose a “all-powerful, world-ruling cabal” of “a Jewish plot to control the world.” It was used throughout the 20th century to justify anti-Semitism.

Moreover, according to Hey Alma, several members of that controlling cabal are Jewish, including the millionaires. Hollywood tends to be controlled by “the Jews.” Jews, they say, tend to side with Democrats. Moreover, Jews are bringing in immigrants to replace white Americans.

This is all vastly, vastly simplified crazy.

But trust us: when you saw a Q in that insurrectionist crowd, you saw not only white supremacy. You saw an anti-Semite.

More White Supremacy Lies: Antifa and #BLM Led The Protests

According to the Anti Defamation League (ADL), almost immediately, conspiracy theorists and white supremacy organizations were attempting to blame claim that the Capitol insurrection may have been orchestrated and implemented by Antifa infiltrators.

If you’re confused, so are we.

According to Religion Dispatches, hours after the Capitol was stormed, Republican representative Matt Gaetz about how “the #BLM and left-wing rioters” were partially responsible for the violence that left Representative Oscio-Cortez thinking she was going to die, according to the BBC. Even Sarah Palin said, “A lot of it is the antifa folks.” And where they’re blame, there’s white supremacy, which antifa explicitly condemns.

You can’t side-step it. You can’t rationalize it. You can’t turn away.

White supremacy: hatred against BIPOC, is alive and well in America.

We must tear it out, stem and root. Along with COVID, this must be Biden’s new job: to fight the domestic terrorists who would sow hatred. If you didn’t know, you know now. And now that you know, start caring.