
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
[Want even more content from FPM? Sign up for FPM+ to unlock exclusive series, virtual town-halls with our authors, and more—now for just $3.99/month. Click here to sign up.]
President-Elect Donald Trump is shaking things up with unorthodox nominations for his forthcoming administration, and right on cue, media propagandists like CBS’ Norah O’Donnell are citing “unnamed sources” to smear long-time veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for Secretary of Defense, with damaging rumors to derail the nomination of a man who threatens the Deep State’s lucrative war machine and woke military leadership. Among these ugly accusations (passionately refuted by close associates who have worked and served with Hegseth for years), is the Left’s shameful attempt to link the Christian symbolism of Hegseth’s tattoos to white supremacist groups.
As Hegseth notes in his New York Times bestselling book The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free, the controversy began when he was a member of the Washington D.C. National Guard tasked with supporting the 2021 inauguration of Joe Biden. Curiously, on the day prior to the event he was singled out and ordered to stand down. Suspecting a political motive behind the revocation of his assignment, Hegseth resigned in angry protest.
It wasn’t until much later that a senior leader in his unit confided to him, “You were not brought to the inauguration because… they dubbed you as a white nationalist and an extremist. You got flagged by two soldiers who had been trolling your social media. They saw your tattoo. And the tattoo was what they flagged you on.”
The tattoo which got him labeled a domestic terror threat, a flabbergasted Hegseth learned, was of a Jerusalem Cross. As Hegseth writes,
The Jerusalem Cross represents Christ’s sacrifice and the mission to spread his gospel to the four corners of the world. There is one large cross in the middle and four smaller crosses at each corner. This was part of the coat of arms after AD 1203 and the 104-year reign of the Jerusalem Kingdom. I got it after I saw it on a church while walking the streets of Jerusalem.
The cross has other symbolic interpretations as well, such as the five crosses representing Christ’s wounds, and the four smaller crosses representing Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the Gospels. The Kingdom of Jerusalem was the principal one of the four Crusader kingdoms established in the Holy Land after the First Crusade in 1099. It lasted nearly 200 years until Acre, the last remaining outpost, fell to Muslims in 1291. Below is a photo I took myself last year of a Jerusalem cross in Jerusalem itself:
Hegseth went on in his book to note, “It’s a religious symbol, not a white nationalist symbol.” Nevertheless, because some contemporary white supremacists have appropriated the symbol and other emblems from the medieval Crusades, progressives pounced to connect them to Hegseth, a public figure who has never once expressed or demonstrated white supremacist leanings.
But it wasn’t only the Jerusalem Cross tattoo that was problematic. Reuters reported last month that one of the soldiers who reported him was now-retired Master Sergeant DeRicko Gaither, who at the time was the unit’s head of physical security. Gaither had sent then-D.C. National Guard Commander Maj. Gen. William Walker an email with a photo of Hegseth’s tattoos.
Gaither’s barely literate email, published by the Associated Press, warned his superior officer that he had uncovered information that was “quiet [sic] disturbing”:
MAJ Hegseth has a tattoo of “Deus Vult” on his inner arm (bicep area). The phrase “Deus Vult” is associated with Supremacist groups in which White-Supremacist use of #DeusVult and a return to medieval Catholicism, is to invoke the myth of a white Christian (i.e. Catholic) medieval past that wishes to ignore the actual demographics and theological state of Catholicism today, let alone the doctrinal practices of contemporary Catholicism. Disseminated in the form of hashtags and internet memes, Deus Vult has enjoyed popularity with members of the alt-right because of its perceived representation of the clash of civilizations between the Christian West and the Islamic world, Crusader memes, such as an image of a Knight Templar accompanied by the caption “I’ll see your Jihad and raise you one crusade are popular on far-right internet pages.
Gaither, who is black, went on to argue falsely that Hegseth’s “Deus Vult” tattoo violated U.S. Army regulations prohibiting “extremist tattoos” symbolizing “extremist philosophies,” and that he should be flagged accordingly as a domestic threat. Of course, under the Biden administration’s woke military leadership, Christianity is an “extremist philosophy.”
“Deus Vult,” or “God wills it,” was indeed a rallying cry for the tens of thousands of Christians inspired by Pope Urban II’s call at the Council of Clermont in 1095 to undertake the First Crusade in order to wrest Jerusalem and the Holy Land back from Muslim control. If a few white supremacists have appropriated it, so what? Why surrender anything to them? Why give bigots of any political persuasion the power to claim our cultural symbols? Their perversion today of Christian symbolism belonging to Crusaders a thousand years ago, who sold their possessions to finance the epic journey to protect the Holy Land and Christian communities there, should in no way sully the symbols, the Crusaders themselves, or warriors in defense of Christendom today, like Pete Hegseth. Expecting everyone today to distance themselves from such historic symbols is as ludicrous and cowardly as expecting everyone to stop using the “OK” sign with one’s fingers simply because it too has been appropriated as a white supremacist dog whistle.
The just response to such appropriation is to reclaim it from the fringe bigots. Pete Hegseth’s tattoos are a personal statement about his faith, the symbols’ historic roots, and his commitment to stand for the noble ideals they represent; if white supremacists try to lay claim to those symbols after the fact, is Hegseth supposed to get the tattoos removed? I have a Jerusalem Cross from the Holy Land on my office wall – am I supposed to take it down or be smeared as a white supremacist?
Army veteran and former Trump administration official Earl Matthews, who is black and served with Hegseth in the D.C. National Guard, hailed the latter as “an exemplary officer” who “performed his assigned duties flawlessly, without limelight or fanfare and he always treated others with dignity and respect.” Matthews called accusations that Hegseth is a white supremacist “patently absurd”:
Why would a white supremacist voluntarily join the D.C. National Guard which was disproportionately black and then commanded by two black general officers (both appointed by President Trump)? Hegseth served honorably in Lafayette Square during the BLM riots, just as he did in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he was prepared to do the same during the Biden inauguration.
Even Michael LaRosa, former press secretary for Jill Biden, objected, writing on X, “This shit has to stop. Opposing DEl initiatives does not make you a white supremacist. Voices like this on the left are turning the Democratic Party into a joke.”
Indeed. But Left-wing propaganda outlet National Public Radio (NPR) helped revive the rumor. On November 14, 2024, NPR’s domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef (yes, NPR actually has a “domestic extremism correspondent”) claimed that “Deus Vult” was “sort of the battle cry to take back the Holy Land and to slaughter Muslims.” Hegseth “is very big,” Yousef warned, “on this notion of a modern-day American Christian crusade. You know, one of his books is titled, ‘American Crusade.’” So we can’t use the word “crusade” now anymore, either, lest we be labeled domestic terrorists.
Yousef cited, as “evidence” of Hegseth’s “deep antipathy toward Islam,” the progressive smear organization Media Matters for America, which “highlighted Hegseth’s connections to Freedom Center founder David Horowitz, whom MMA libeled as “a prominent American Islamophobe.” Islamophobia, of course, is a Muslim Brotherhood-weaponized neologism which suggests that legitimate criticism of Islam stems from an “irrational fear” of it.
Yousef went on to cite unnamed “scholars” who claimed that Hegseth is part of a movement at “the very militant end of the Christian nationalist spectrum,” whatever that means (but to NPR’s upscale white progressive audience the term “Christian nationalism” = American Taliban), which “seeks to reestablish Old Testament Biblical law.” Someone named Julie Ingersoll from the University of North Florida chimed in on NPR to fear-monger that “this tradition is deeply patriarchal. Men are in charge, and women exist for the purpose of assisting their men in their exercise of dominion.”
Yousef then attempted to link this purported “patriarchal tradition” to “what Hegseth has said in interviews about wanting to remove women from combat roles” – as if keeping women off the front lines stems from some kind of misogynist oppression rather than from a commonsense understanding of how women in combat adversely impact the unity, efficacy, and safety of battle units. Keeping women out of the fight also protects them from the monstrous war crimes typically committed against women, such as those the world witnessed in Israel on October 7, 2023. The Left would happily put women in such dangerous conditions for the sake of “gender equality” — that’s the real misogyny.
The NPR segment, in addition to serving to subvert Pete Hegseth’s nomination as SecDef, also demonstrated how the multiculturalist Left has in recent decades undertaken an historical revisionist mission to paint the Crusades as a barbaric campaign waged by Christian fanatics against Muslim innocents in the Holy Land. As Casey Chalk wrote at Crisis, “Only someone entirely ignorant of the Crusades and medieval Catholicism could utter something so risibly stupid.”
Or someone intentionally recasting Christian Crusaders as the aggressors and colonialists, and Muslims as innocents defending their homeland. In fact, the opposite is true. Within 100 years of the death of its prophet Muhammad, Islam had carved out an empire larger than Rome’s had ever been, spreading the religion by the sword and claiming territory from Saudi Arabia eastward beyond present-day Afghanistan and westward across North Africa to Spain. Throughout subsequent centuries Muslims attempted to expand their conquests through repeated military incursions into continental Europe (including advancing upon Paris before being repelled by Charles Martel at the history-making battle of Tours) and multiple sieges of the nearly-impregnable Constantinople, which eventually fell to Muslims in 1453.
The Crusades were a belated response, then, to hundreds of years of Islamic colonialist aggression; the goal was “to take back the Holy Land” as Yousef put it (Jerusalem fell to Muslims in 637), but not to “slaughter” Muslims per se. Yes, slaughter was the order of the day in the Middle Ages, as it has been in every culture throughout history, but progressives always conveniently ignore the slaughter of Christians carried out by medieval Muslims (just as they conveniently ignore the slaughter carried out by Muslims today, whether in Israel or India or throughout heavily Islamized areas of Western Europe, not to mention the ongoing eradication of Jewish and Christian communities throughout the Middle East).
As Rodney Stark concludes in his must-read case for the Crusades, God’s Battalions:
The Crusades were not unprovoked. They were not the first round of European colonialism. They were not conducted for land, loot, or converts. The Crusaders were not barbarians who victimized the cultivated Muslims. They sincerely believed that they served in God’s battalions.
As does Pete Hegseth. Leftists like those at NPR target the Crusades and Crusaders past and present with revisionist propaganda because they, not Pete Hegseth, are the ones with a “deep antipathy” toward religion – not the supremacist ideology of Islam, but Christianity, a faith that is at the core of the Western civilization which progressives are so hell-bent – literally – on deconstructing.
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior
The crusades aren’t some relic of the past – they’re happening today. Just look at Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, blessed as holy war by the Russian Orthodox Church, and sees the war as saving Russian from homosexuality and Satanism.
And the historic crusaders weren’t seizing the Holy Land to give it to Jews, who they slaughtered and persecuted.
The leftists bottom feeders and gutter/Sewer Dwellers are the worse of the worse
This kind of intentional misrepresentation of history isn’t unusual for the left. The purges of historical events to forward a political agenda goes back to the beginning of mankind. But the “whitewashing “ of Islam and reversing the roles of the Crusades is a tactic used by the Muslim death cult to portray themselves as victims until they have the numbers to seize power. Read their damn book. It’s there in blood red. NPR needs to be defunded and left to its own devices. Propaganda paid for by taxpayers is an affront to this Republic.
I believe that Pete would make a far superior DOD head then the present cabal
I have to remind the readers that the Crusaders slaughtered thousands of Jews on their way to Jerusalem
Pete is a supporter of Israel and the elimination of Radical Islam
For that I support him
Many members of the military are historically illiterate, even convinced the Constitution itself is outdated and those adhering to it are a danger to the country. The DOD is promoting Christianity as radical and a threat to national security.
It is no wonder an employee on a military base in the US southwest was recently fired for making ‘disparaging’ comments about communism. He was pegged an insider threat and then fired by the contract house he was working for. Apparently communism is now a protected ideology by the DOD.
Agree with you on that. The real Christian threats are Bush and Condoleeza Rice who are the allies of the Globalists. Condoleeza Rice is the head of the Hoover Institute. It is an evil war mongering institution. She has justified all the lies of Bush regarding Iraq.
The Jerusalem Cross features on a medal awarded to soldiers of the Free Polish Army in Exile WWII.. The crosses were awarded to “each worthy Catholic pilgrim” which visited the Holy Land. Silver crosses were awarded to those which visited the Holy Land twice and made the necessary donations and payments for the cross.
The first crusade and those after it were a 350 year delayed response to previous hundreds of years of Islamic aggression. Lamented the jihad general when he arrived at the 7th Century Atlantic coast of ancient Spain, “I regret there are no infidels to be put to the sword. Were it not for the sea, I’d continue West.”
Ignorance of history is the best weapon of the leftist Dhimmi mind set. That ignorance bound to cowardice are presently sowing their seeds.
“The cross has other symbolic interpretations…the four smaller crosses representing Matthew, Mark, Luke and John of the Gospels. The Kingdom of Jerusalem…established in the Holy Land…”
One wants to wear a tattoo, fine. A tattoo with a big cross and four smaller ones around it, fine. The problem, the big problem, with the four crosses, is what it means to the wearer, or one who posts a picture or flag of it. So, what does Matthew, Mark, Luke and John mean to these professing Christians? What do they understand regarding the four gospel’s?
Some years ago on Bill O’Reilly’s radio show, he was talking about some moral problem in the culture. O’Reilly was bringing the Bible into the conversation some; a caller wanted to mention something Paul said, but O’Reilly shut that down immediately. In so many words, O’Reilly said, “No, we only want to hear what Jesus said.” That was really stupid. Does O’Reilly, or any other Christian, think only the words “in red” are God’s word’s?
So, the four gospel’s. What about them? I love those four books. However, the Christian MUST understand that the Lord came to be “manifest to Israel.” We Gentiles then were “aliens from…Israel,” “WITHOUT God.” Isaiah said it was for the transgression of “MY people” (Israel) that the Redeemer was going to get stricken (Is. 53:8). “Without God,” meaning that what was revealed then, was that the Lord was not coming to pay for the sins of “all,” but rather of “many.” It is not until we get to Paul that we learn the Lord died for “all.”
The Christian must read and study that Book a bit more and see, that from Gen. 12 to Acts 9, that that was God’s program with Israel. The “middle wall of partition,” separating Jew and Gentile was UP in that entire time, including on the day of Pentecost, the so-called birthday of the church (it’s not).
In Acts 9, with Paul, God temporarily suspended His program with Israel, and with Paul God began doing something different. The “Holy Land” is not, and has not, been in play since Acts 9. When this dispensation of grace concludes, then that Land will be very, very important again.
Garbage talk…
What you’re spewing is the ‘Paul is Savior’ doctrines of the devil…
The idea that God made a mistake with His 1st program and had to correct it… is ludicrous…
Does your so called god make mistakes? Mine doesn’t !!!
Strong’s…
dispensation: 3622
oijkonomiva
Oikonomia (oy-kon-om-ee’-ah);
Word Origin: Greek, Noun
Feminine, Strong #: 3622
the management of a household or of household affairs
specifically, the management, oversight, administration, of other’s property
the office of a manager or overseer, stewardship
administration, dispensation
Dispensation does NOT mean old and/or new era…
You’ve been duped and brainwashed…
Blah, blah, blah….over and out. The left is damning itself to oblivion and we no longer listen to them. These idiots think that Trump hasn’t already had him vetted before selection?
When their censorship was catapulted and the people used other media to communicate truth to your lies, they still walk naked before us acting like a royalty they aren’t and never were!
They are becoming masters of their irrelevancy!!
America came close to dying one month ago this very day. As in
dead as a door nail. If Commie Kamala had prevailed – they would’ve
finished destroying the land of the free. That is a cold, hard reality.
Pete Hegseth seems a perfect fit to lead the defense of our country
based on his education, his decorated combat veteran history and
the views espoused in his best-selling book. So any sexual
peccadilloes on his part in consideration of his nomination to defend
our beleaguered nation are a last priority. Not to mention I don’t
believe anything the mainstream media and leftists say about him
anyway and that includes Islamic shills.
I love that phrased idea Deus Vult – God Wills It. May it propel Pete
Hegseth into securing the title of United States Secretary of Defense.
The crusades were catholic in origin. Not Christian. In fact catholic crusades in Europe were against Christians who would not submit to Rome. European Christians were slaughtered by the tens of thousands in the name of the various pope’s. Not Christ.