The militiamen appeared proudly bearing the emblems of their groups – American flags with the stars replaced by the Roman numeral III, emblems that said “Oath Keepers”. Alt-right types wore Pepe the Frog masks, and QAnon fans could be seen on T-shirts urging people to “Trust the Plan”. White supremacists brought their variant of the cross.
And then there were thousands of Trump supporters with MAGA gear – flags, caps, T-shirts, thermoses, socks. A flag depicted President Trump as Rambo; another showed him riding a Tyrannosaurus rex and carrying the type of rocket-propelled grenade launcher seen in the streets of Mogadishu or Kandahar.
The iconography of the American far right was on display on January 6 during the Capitol violence. The dizzying array of symbols, slogans and images was, for many Americans, a striking aspect of the unrest, revealing an alternative political universe where violent extremists, racists and conspiracy theorists march side by side with evangelical Christians, suburban Trump supporters and young people. who delight in making memes to “own the libs”.
Joining them is loyalty to Mr. Trump and a firm belief in his false and discredited insistence that the election was stolen. The absurdity of many images – the patches that say “Zombie Outbreak Response Team,” for example – just masked a devotion that inspired hundreds of the crowd to mount a deadly attack on Congress.
“It’s often just a caricature – it looks like military fanfiction – until it isn’t and crosses a very dangerous line,” said Joan Donovan, research director at the Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.
“It’s funny, even scary,” she said.
These are some of the groups and their insignia.
The militias
In force were right-wing militias such as the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters, whose symbol, the Roman numeral III, could be seen on patches and flags. Both groups are anti-government, pro-weapons and, today, Trump’s devotees.
Others on the right who share the militia’s anti-government views often signal their beliefs with the Gadsden flag, a yellow belt dating from the American Revolution with a rattlesnake and the phrase “Don’t tread on me.” Dozens were waved at the Capitol last week.
And then there’s the Confederate battle flag. A man carried the flag of secession and slavery through the Capitol corridors on January 6.
The Boogaloos branded themselves using their exclusive Hawaiian shirts. A group of Proud Boys appeared in orange hats.
Both the Boogaloos and the Proud Boys include racists and anti-Semites, although supporters of white supremacy tend to maintain a lower profile. Some use crosses or pagan Germanic images that have become popular in racist and anti-Semitic peripheries. Others adopted an “OK” gesture as if they were theirs.
Pepe and ‘Kek’
Pepe the Frog, the smiling cartoon amphibian who became a widely known symbol of the alternative right-wing crowd, was a common sight.
Also on display were the green and white flags of Kekistan, the fictional country that houses the deity “Kek”. In the culture driven by alternative right-wing memes, a satirical religion has emerged around Kek “as a way to troll liberals and hypocritical conservatives,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups. “He is a god of chaos and darkness, with a frog’s head, the source of his mimetic ‘magic’, to whom the alt-right and Donald Trump owe their success.”
The flag is partially derived from the Nazi flag, a design that is treated as a provocative joke in alt-right circles.
This conspiracy theory falsely asserts that there is a conspiracy of Democrats, bureaucrats from the deepest state and international financiers who use their power to rape and kill children, and that Trump was elected to defeat them.
The chatter is complicated and confusing, but its iconography is clear and abundant: there were T-shirts with the letter “Q” or slogans like “Trust the Plan”; posters saying “Save the Children”; and flags with the abbreviation “WWG1WGA”, which means “Where we go one, we all go”.
Trump supporters
Along with the violent, the overtly racist and the paranoid were thousands of devoted supporters of Trump, some of whom even brought small children. The crowd was full of people in MAGA costumes and Trump flags were everywhere. Most just said “Trump”; others were a little stranger.
Comics & Science Fiction
The skull-like symbol of the Punisher, a Marvel comic book anti-hero who fights crime, was a common sight. It has become a popular emblem on the far right in recent years and is sometimes used by police officers to signal each other without having to wear badges.
There were people waving the flag of South Vietnam, which disappeared decades ago when the North won the war. But now he lives again, 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’s website describes its members as “preparers and survivors who prepare for all the worst scenarios”.