The confederate “rebel” flag was an obscure battle flag from the U.S. Civil War (1861-1865) and was repopularized during desegregation while being used to invoke the racist defense of slavery.
The League of the South, whose flag parodies the rebel flag (above), is a white nationalist neo-confederate organization that advocates for Southern secession and for the “lost cause of the confederacy”.
The Thin Blue Line flag (sometimes shown as a blue stripe across plain black) is a reactionary response to Black Lives Matter that supports the police, often using parody slogan “Blue Lives Matter”.
The Gadsden flag is a revolutionary war era symbol named for Christopher Gadsden. It promotes libertarian ideals in general, though modern use is most common with the right wing.
Flags from the revolutionary war are sometimes used to assert a need to return to originalist interpretations of our nation’s founding documents and to invoke the American revolution as a way of saying either extensive change is needed or that the country explicitly needs another revolution in the spirit of the first. The Betsy Ross flag (shown top left) is a reconstruction of an early American flag following the Flag Act of 1777. The Pine Tree flag (shown bottom left) was one of the first used in the revolution and was used by George Washington.
The Three Percenters are a right-wing militia group named for the misconception that only 3% of Americans fought in the Revolutionary War. On February 21, 2021, leadership dissolved the American national group following violence on January 6th, 2021.
The Celtic Cross is not necessarily a white power symbol but is frequently used as one. It consists of a plus sign or a cross (the two are equally common in use) with a circle over the intersection.
The Proud Boys are an American fascist organization with exclusively male membership officially founded by Gavin McGinnes in 2016, an organization its founder’s home country of Canada has officially labeled as a terrorist group. They have a specific focus on misogyny, racism, anti-Queerness, antisemitism, and xenophobia, and are well-known nationally for political violence, including significant member participation in violence on January 6th, 2021. Common slogans include “The West Is Best,” “Stand Back, Stand By” (a reference to former president Donald Trump’s statements when asked to condemn extremist supporters), and POYB, which means “Proud Of Your Boy,” a reference to the groups’ namesake, a song cut from Disney’s animated 1992 classic Aladdin.
QAnon is a far-right conspiracy group with the central claim that a cabal of satanic, cannibalistic pedophiles conspired against Donald Trump’s presidency and that a day would come (dubbed “the storm”) when Trump would arrest them all, information received by an anonymous poster (or posters) on various websites who goes by “Q”. It is occult and has a deep grasp on the minds of its followers. The doctrine of Qanon frequently uses antisemitic dog whistles and often turns to explicit anti-Queer and antisemitic hate. Common slogans include WWG1WGA (Where we go one, we go all), “follow the white rabbit” (a reference to Alice in Wonderland), as well as using references to the 1999 movie The Matrix.
The Blood Drop Cross or the MIOAK or (Mystic Insignia Of A Klansman) is the primary symbol of the Klu Klux Klan (KKK) which is a white supremacist, antisemitic, anti-Queer, anti-Labor far-right terror organization that has been using murder and bombings to advance its cause since 1860.
The Fasces is a bundle of wooden rods, typically with the head of an axe emerging from it, and has been a symbol of collective power since ancient Rome. It became used as a fascist symbol by Italy, and is the origin of the word fascist.
The Sieg Heil or Nazi Salute (shown left) is a display of obedience to Adolf Hitler, the dictator of Nazi Germany. The “OK” Symbol hand motion (shown right) in some contexts means “White Power” with the three raised fingers forming the W and the circle and hand forming the P.
“14,” “88,” “14/88,” “The 14 Words”: The fourteen words, a white supremacist slogan originating with domestic terrorist David Eden Lane, are “we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children”. White supremacists often pair this with 88, which stands in for HH, short for heil Hitler, a declaration of obedience to the deceased Nazi dictator.
WWG1WGA: WWG1WGA stands for “where we go one we go all,” which is most associated with the right-wing conspiracy group Qanon, but is also used by groups like the Proud Boys.
“6MWE” means “six million wasn’t enough,” or sometimes “six million more” is saying that the six million Jewish people that the Nazis murdered (alongside five million other prisoners) in the Holocaust, widely believed to be one of the worst atrocities ever committed, should be repeated.
“RWDS” means Right Wing Death Squad, commonly shown on “Pinochet Did Nothing Wrong” t-shirts, referencing the deceased authoritarian Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet was a brutal and violent leader of Chile from the U.S.-backed military coup in 1973 (officially being declared president in 1974) until 1990. Modern right-wing extremists mostly reference Pinochet’s regime with jokes about “free helicopter rides” for leftists, a reference to the 120 prisoners the Chilean government reports were thrown from helicopters, a small percentage of the estimated 1,200 to 3,200 people killed by the regime.
Symbols of Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany was the German state from 1933-1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party transformed Germany into a totalitarian dictatorship, orchestrating the Holocaust, in which eleven million people were systematically murdered, six million of which were Jewish people. It was ended by resistance groups and Allied invasion, with Adolf Hitler killing himself in a bunker on April 30th, 1945. There are much better sources to learn about World War II than this website and the summaries provided here are inadequate. The principal symbol of Nazism is the swastika (the black portion of the flag below), though they appropriated this ancient Eurasian cultural and religious symbol and it is not always used to invoke Nazism. The same is true of the runes used by the regime; they are ancient symbols and are not always used to reference or support Nazism. The SS lightning bolts are the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, the Nazi military organization considered responsible for most of the murders in the Holocaust.
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Sources for Page Two
Franklin, Jonathan (9 January 2001). "Chilean army admits 120 thrown into sea". The Guardian.
Tian, Edward (January 21, 2021). "The QAnon Timeline: Four Years, 5,000 Drops and Countless Failed Prophecies". Bellingcat.
Crocker, H.W. (2006). Don't Tread On Me: A 400-year History of American at War, from Indian Fighting to Terrorist Hunting. Three Rivers Press. p. 51.
Michael, George (2009). "David Lane and the Fourteen Words". Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions. 43–61.
Former Chilean army chief charged over 1973 killing of activists Archived 5 May 2021 at the Wayback Machine. The Guardian
"Chile under Pinochet – a chronology". The Guardian. London. 24 March 1999.
"A Look at Racist Skinhead Symbols and Tattoos". Southern Poverty Law Center.
"Three Percenters". Anti-Defamation League. August 23, 2018.
Duggan, Paul (November 28, 2018). "The Confederacy Was Built on Slavery. How Can So Many Southern Whites Think Otherwise?". The Washington Post.
Leepson, Marc (June 12, 2011). "Five myths about the American flag". The Washington Post.
Wyatt, Rick (2002). Washington's Cruisers Flag (U.S.). Retrieved from http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-wacr.html
"Government of Canada lists 13 new groups as terrorist entities and completes review of seven others". Government of Canada. 3 February 2021
GAVIN MCINNES explains the origins of the PROUD BOYS, The World Pioneer on Youtube. (https://youtu.be/lPpb-nfQW_8)
Matthew N. Lyons, Right-Wing Populism in America (2000), ch. 3, 5, 13.