In the past few years, the prominent use of flags by Trump fans has ranged from the “Don’t Tread On Me” Gadsden flag to the Confederate Battle flag to basic Trump or MAGA banners to “Blue Lives Matter” flags. Now they have a new flag to rally around. On October 13, 2021, at a rally held for Virginia GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin that was organized by Steve Bannon, members of the crowd recited the Pledge of Allegiance to an American flag that they were told was present at the Capitol during the 1/6 insurrection. The symbolism is obvious to any student of fascist political movements. In Germany in the 1920s and ‘30s, members of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party venerated the so-called blood flag, or blutfahne, that was said to have been carried in Hitler’s failed 1923 “beer hall putsch” in Munich and soaked with the blood of a party member who was killed in that failed coup attempt. The Blood Flag became a totemic relic for the Nazi party and Hitler used it to consecr...
The Ken Padgett Blog
