Accidentally On Purpose?

 

I get that CPAC is about right-wing signifying, but the CPAC stage being laid out to resemble the Odal rune once used by the SS Waffen and preferred by some neo-Nazis over the swastika is a little bit....much, right? I mean, surely it's a dumb coincidence. 

Nope, we've been here before. The argument over "accident" vs. "on purpose" is partially about fucking with the libs, partially about letting the white supremacists (who would know what it looks like, even if regular folks don't) feel included. The way some fash or fash-adjacent person might flash white power hand gestures and then pretend they are just feeling A-OK. At some point, there is no benefit of the doubt left.

I mean, when Josh Hawley explicitly says he is paraphrasing a quote by Daniel Webster ("Union now, union forever") but changes it to "America now, America first, America forever", it's that little detail of three clauses that might make you hear echoes of George Wallace at first, but the insertion of "America first" is what drives it home for people with long memories.

But you know. Josh Hawley was just talking about our God-given rights not to be silenced when trying to argue about throwing out the votes of African American people, is all. Why are people so tense? It's like they think his kind of charisma-free use of that line of bullshit led to a pretty divisive um....domestic terrorist attack on our Capitol or something. 

You know who was also signaling pretty hard? Fellow scumbag insurrection-lover Ted Cruz, who when he wasn't joking about going to Cancun while his fellow Texans froze like the fun-loving chap he is, implied that white folks in Texas owning guns is why BLM didn't riot in Houston because he is the kind of guy who definitely loves Kyle Rittenhouse, I guess. 

Look, it could, very possibly, could, have been an accident that the stage took that shape. But when you stop and listen to the speakers, you can't mistake what they are. And if you were of a mind to forget, just think of Rep. Paul Gosar, Republican, insurrection enthusiast, CPAC attendee, and also an attendee at AFPAC down the road, which is a bit more explicit about the white nationalism. 

You don't have to know what an odal rune is to know what they're about anymore.

UPDATE:  Apparently, the Odal rune was an accident. The other fascist stuff was still on purpose.