Joe Maloney’s “The New Crusade” (1949), shared by Propagandopolis, which archives historical propaganda materials (screenshot via Instagram)
Last month, Trump “retruthed” a Truth Social post asserting that George Washington would’ve hung the Democrats. The message echoed calls to hang Mike Pence and others that proliferated during the January 6 insurrection, but more interestingly, the account that posted it had the Jerusalem Cross as their profile picture.
The Jerusalem Cross, a symbol representing the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the spread of Christianity from the Holy Land (Palestine), along with the phrase “Deus Vult” (“God wills it” in Latin) and other Crusader iconography, has proliferated across the internet, especially within far-right manosphere circles where Christian nationalism and white supremacy fuse with red-pill and men’s rights content. United States Secretary of War (formerly “Defense”) Pete Hegseth — who wrote a book titled American Crusade in 2020 and is known for — has a massive tattoo of the cross emblazoned across his chest, one of several linking him to white supremacist ideology. Accounts like @ModernCrusaders on X have made “Crusadercore” their own brand, even commodifying the Crusader craze through merchandise, disseminating patently AI-generated imagery of romanticized knights in shining armor, and celebrating the November 27 anniversary of Pope Urban II declaring the First Crusade in 1095, which precipitated around two centuries of the papacy-sanctioned war to seize control of the Holy Land from Muslim rulers.
It’s especially popular among, though not limited to, young, White Catholic men who see the Crusades as the ultimate masculine performance.
Hegseth, who leads the Department of War (renamed from Department of Defense by Donald Trump in September), has multiple tattoos associated with white supremacy and Crusadercore aesthetics. (screenshot via @TaylorMatthewD on X)
During the Second World War, cartoonist Joe Maloney created multiple images of modern crusaders fighting “blasphemy,” including in a 1949 cartoon titled “The New Crusade,” which shows a crusader fighting figures with spears and banners reading “Hoards of Communism,” “Secularism,” and “Atheism.” Crusadercore accounts like @TradWest even acknowledge this comic.
Twenty-first-century Crusadercore, however, is unique in the rapidity with which it has escalated and expanded into non-Catholic circles. In fact, Crusadercore has become a calling card for modern Christian nationalist violence more broadly, with Crusader imagery worn by insurrectionists on January 6.
In early December, an official US military social media account shared a photo collage featuring the Jerusalem Cross in a post about the boat strikes and the deployment of troops to the Caribbean. Men cosplaying as Crusaders have popped up across the world, from a Crusader in tactical gear protesting outside of a Satanic ritual in Kansas to a modern-day Templar ritual in Portugal. One Louisiana militia even used crusader and Templar imagery as their insignia.
Crusadercore imagery is historically accurate and largely AI generated. (screenshot via Instagram)
Crusader imagery has long been co-opted by far-right nationalist, fascist, and white supremacist groups. The Ku Klux Klan published its own newspaper from 1977 to 2005 called the Crusader. KKK robes even featured the Jerusalem Cross, and materials mobilize young White men around ideals of White knighthood.
To be clear, the modern fascination with Medieval aesthetics more broadly is not the problem — not even “Castlecore,” a design sensibility that “blends fantastical escapism and comforting familiarity, preserving its ability to function as a narrative tool,” as journalist Roberta Fabbrocino writes for TITLE magazine. In fact, modern “Medievalcore” enthusiasts often find joy in scholarship that highlights the diversity of gender and sexuality during an era that was previously called the “Dark Ages.”
Rather, the danger is far-right groups co-opting the aesthetics of the Crusades for their own objectives, transforming an obsession with feudal justice into a campaign for a White Christian nation. They warp the deadly and deeply Islamophobic campaign of the original Crusades into a modern-day battle against what they believe to be a tide of growing secularism, deifying their online and in-person war for a Christian country. Not only are they glorifying a conflict that emboldened men to rape, pillage, and murder in the name of God, but they are reshaping the Islamophobic and antisemitic Crusades in their own image. Their form of Crusadercore is the direct result of Medievalism, or the appropriative, revisionist reimagining of the Middle Ages for white supremacist ends.
Appalachian Liberty is one of several social media accounts that “celebrated” Crusade Day in November. (screenshot via X)
Some followers of Crusadercore argue that the original Crusades, like their perceived modern culture war, were justified by threats to European Christian ways of life. Yet, just last week, Pope Leo denounced using religion to justify war and violence, following the Church’s official apology for the Crusades in 2000 (over 900 years after they began). Democratic politician Christopher Hale argues that the very people who rejected Pope Leo’s message are those whom it fails to profit — including “online crusader hobbyists.” These same men sought to invalidate the pope, the very person who has the authority to launch another Crusade, by arguing instead that he’s not Catholic or that he’s a communist. If he won’t get behind their cause, accounts like @Tradwest are more than happy to Photoshop him inspecting the fictive troops for a non-existent next Crusade.
In fact, as online Crusader content illustrates, there is a clear pipeline of escalating violence for young White men — from MAGA hats to Crusader metal armor — in the political imagery that they use. Despite their cause — to create a White Christian United States — not being new or original to this group of historical Live Action Role Players (commonly known as LARPers), Crusadercore provides young men with a historically bastardized visual lexicon, one that gives new credence and religious authority to modern bigotry.
Perhaps the strongest example is the far-right Catholic podcaster Nick Fuentes, who has himself called for the creation of a Catholic nation. His followers, self-appointed members of the “Groyper Army,” are often represented by meme and comic character Pepe the Frog, wfeatuho has been reimagined wearing chainmail and the red Jerusalem Cross on the Instagram account @frog_crusader.
Whether this far-right dog whistle in Crusader clothing was directed by Fuentes or not, it signals a dangerous precedent. Crusadercore has ballooned from a visual language for modern far-right Catholic men into an aesthetic for American Christian nationalism writ large.
