Decoding the symbols of the far right during the Capitol riot

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Militiamen showed up proudly bearing the emblems of their groups – American flags with the stars replaced by the Roman numeral III, crests bearing the inscription “Oath Keepers”. The Alt-right guys wore Pepe the Frog masks, and QAnon adherents could be seen in t-shirts urging people to “trust the plan.” White supremacists brought their variant of the crossed cross.

And then there were thousands of Trump supporters with MAGA gear – flags, hats, T-shirts, thermos, socks. A flag represented President Trump as Rambo; another featured him riding a Tyrannosaurus rex and carrying the kind of rocket-propelled grenade launcher seen on the streets of Mogadishu or Kandahar.

The iconography of the American extreme right was exhibited on January 6 during the violence on the Capitol. The dizzying array of symbols, slogans, and imagery has been a stark aspect of the unrest for many Americans, revealing an alternate political universe where violent extremists, diehard racists and conspiracy theorists march side by side. coast with evangelical Christians, Trump suburban supporters and young men. who revel in creating memes to “own the libs”.

To unite them is a loyalty to Mr. Trump and a firm belief in his false and discredited insistence on stealing the election. The absurdity of many of the images – the patches labeled “Zombie Outbreak Response Team,” for example – only masked a devotion that inspired hundreds of people to mount a deadly attack on Congress.

“It’s often a caricature – it looks like military fan fiction – until it isn’t and it crosses a very dangerous line,” said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Harvard Kennedy School Media, Politics and Public Policy.

“It’s funny until it scares you,” she said.

Here are some of the bands and their badges.

Right-wing militias like the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters were in force, the symbol of which, the Roman numeral III, could be seen on the crests and flags. Both groups are anti-government, pro-guns, and nowadays devoted to Mr. Trump.

Others on the right who share the militia’s anti-government views often signal their beliefs with the Gadsden flag, a yellow banner from the American Revolution with a rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t step on me.” Dozens of people were agitated on Capitol Hill last week.

And then there is the Confederate battle flag. A man carried the banner of secession and slavery through the halls of the Capitol on January 6.

The Boogaloos made their mark by wearing their iconic Hawaiian shirts. A group of Proud Boys showed up in orange hats.

The Boogaloos and Proud Boys include racists and anti-Semites, although white supremacists tend to keep a low profile. Some wear crossed crosses or Germanic pagan images that have become popular on racist and anti-Semitic fringes. Others adopted an “OK” hand gesture as their own.

Pepe the Frog, the smiling cartoon amphibian who has become a widely recognized symbol of the alt-right crowd, was a common sight.

The green and white flags of Kekistan, the fictional country that houses the deity “Kek” were also on display. In the even culture of the alternative right, a satirical religion has developed around Kek “as a way to troll self-righteous liberals and conservatives,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. “He is a god of chaos and darkness, with the head of a frog, the source of their mimetic” magic “, to whom the alt-right and Donald Trump owe their success.

The flag is in part derived from the Nazi flag, a design that is treated as a provocative joke in right-wing circles.

This conspiracy theory falsely claims that there is a cabal of Democrats, deep state bureaucrats and international financiers who are using their power to rape and kill children, and that Mr. Trump was elected to defeat them.

The duck is convoluted and confusing, but its iconography is clear and abundant: there were shirts with the letter “Q” or slogans like “Trust the Plan”; signs indicating “Save the Children”; and indicators with the abbreviation “WWG1WGA”, which means “Where we go one, we all go”.

Besides the violent, openly racists and paranoid, there were thousands of staunch Trump supporters, some of whom even brought young children. The crowd was packed with people wearing MAGA badges and Trump flags were everywhere. Most simply said “Trump”; others were a little more bizarre.

The skull-shaped symbol of the Punisher, a crime-fighting Marvel comic book antihero, was a common sight. It has become a popular emblem of the far right in recent years and is sometimes used by police officers to identify themselves without having to wear badges.

People were waving the South Vietnamese flag, which disappeared decades ago when the North won the war. But now he is coming back to life, adopted by some on the American right as a symbol of anti-Communist resistance.

Then there was the Zombie Outbreak Response Team. A man wearing a sticker with his emblem was photographed inside the Capitol. His face is obscured in the photo and he has not been identified. But the Zombie Team website describes its members as “preparers and survivors preparing for all worst case scenarios.”

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