A “Crusader March” is a mechanism that turns politics into holy-war legitimacy, and grants permission for violence.

(Summary below is based on the full footage.)

This afternoon in Washington, D.C., pardoned Jan. 6 participant Jake Lang held a “Crusader” rally in person outside AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a major pro-Israel U.S. lobby group).

In the video footage of the rally, there is identity targeting and intimidation. Then, there is the open normalization of violence. Lang is dressed like a militiaman, with plaid shirt under a tan tactical plate carrier covered in patches (including a U.S. flag and one reading “INFIDEL”), which visually reinforces the “holy war / combat” posture.

The content includes antisemitic money tropes, demographic panic, “gallows”/“crusaders” rhetoric, Nazi signaling, and violence fantasy scenarios (including one about killing a would-be attacker, pre-argued as “self-defense”). That’s the slide worth tracking: policy → membership → violence.

Lang also reiterated a plan to mobilize activists to break Tina Peters (a former Mesa County, Colorado clerk currently serving a state prison sentence tied to voting-system interference/data-breach conduct) out of prison, worth noting because a U.S. president can’t pardon a state conviction.

Hyperallergic describes “Crusadercore” as a fast-spreading online aesthetic: Jerusalem Cross / “Deus Vult” / templar-knight imagery—that equips young men with a historically mangled Crusades lexicon and re-credits grievance politics as “religious duty.” The look makes grievance feel sacred, and gives people social permission to talk like this in public. The warning is the pipeline: aesthetics → identity → social permission → escalation.

Because this symbolism isn’t just internet cosplay, it’s already shown up in mainstream U.S. politics and institutions. Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s Secretary of Defense, has a “Deus Vult” tattoo and a Jerusalem Cross tattoo, and those tattoos became a national controversy after a fellow National Guard member flagged them during vetting; reporting said he was pulled from prior inauguration duty. That matters here because it shows the exact “crusader” visual language Hyperallergic is warning about is now legible, and contested, far beyond fringe rallies.

You can argue borders or lobbying influence without scapegoating, Nazi cues, or threat talk. I’m focused on the moments when it becomes the second thing.

Where’s the line? What stops ‘crusader’ branding from becoming recruitment for political violence?