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.
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.
Never said the guy was Polish, just that plenty of the elder religious folk I grew up around had that cross in their houses and that it likely had a religious meaning, before being co-opted by the far right, that may still be in use with some groups.
Also I’m in the UK and my Polish family here arrived in the 60’s, so likely a different cultural group to many of the Polish Catholic’s in the US who, from what I’ve gathered, emigrated much earlier.