Here’s What the Costumes and Flags on Display at the Pro-Trump Insurrection Mean

On 6 January 2021, a mob of violent, pro-Trump insurrectionists stormed the United States Capitol building in Washington D.C., forcing both houses of Congress to evacuate. These insurrectionists wanted to force Congress to overturn the vote of electoral college, which voted in favor of Joe Biden becoming the next president of the United States. Thankfully, after several hours of fighting, the rebels were eventually driven out of the Capitol. Congress has now ratified the votes of the electoral college, confirming Joe Biden’s inauguration on 20 January 2021.

Many of the insurrectionists at the Capitol were dressed in unusual costumes and carrying various flags. Many people are confused about why they dressed in this manner and what their costumes signify. Obviously, the real concern here should be the fact that these insurrectionists literally attempted a coup. Nonetheless, I think it is worth examining some of the iconography that was on display in order to get a sense of the kind of narrative that these people are trying to promote.

Basic background information

On 6 January 2021, the United States Congress held a joint session to count and certify the votes of the electoral college. Meanwhile, a very large crowd of Donald Trump supporters were gathered on the Ellipse in Washington D.C. for the so-called “Save America” rally. At 10:50 a.m. EST, Trump himself gave a speech to his supporters, in which he declared:

“You’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong. We have come to demand that Congress do the right thing and only count the electors who have been lawfully slated. I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard today.”

At around 2:15 p.m. EST, a mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists violently burst into the United States Capitol building and forced both houses of Congress to evacuate. Most of the insurrectionists simply barged in through the Capitol doors, which they themselves forced open, but others climbed the walls of the building to get in and some of them smashed their way in through windows.

It is unclear how the insurrectionists managed to get past the security officers who were supposed to be standing guard outside the Capitol, but some video evidence indicates that the security officers may have simply let them pass through out of sympathy for their cause.

ABOVE: Photograph of the mob of pro-Trump insurrectionists flooding all around the Capitol building

ABOVE: Photograph of pro-Trump insurrectionists climbing the west wall of the Capitol

ABOVE: Photograph of pro-Trump insurrectionists streaming in through the Capitol doors

Some of the insurrectionists were armed with guns and other weapons, some of which they carried openly, others of which they kept concealed. The insurrectionists tore pictures off the walls, flipped over furniture, broke into Congressional offices, and engaged in extensive looting. Several pro-Trump insurrectionists were caught on video taking down the American flag inside the Capitol and replacing it with a Donald Trump campaign flag.

There were violent clashes between the insurrectionists and Capitol police officers. Police attempted to barricade the doors to the House chamber shut with furniture to keep the insurrectionists from breaking through, but, despite their efforts, the insurrectionists successfully broke into both the House and Senate chambers.

An unknown Capitol police officer shot and killed a woman named Ashli Babbitt, who was one of the insurrectionists. Three other insurrectionists died as a result of medical emergencies. Meanwhile, according to CBS News, at least fifty police officers were injured. One police officer named Brian D. Sicknick sustained injuries while fighting the insurrectionists and collapsed upon returning to his division office. He was promptly hospitalized. He died at around 9:30 p.m. EST on 7 January, raising the total number of people killed in the insurrection to five.

Police officers in Washington D.C. discovered at least two makeshift pipe bombs: one that had been planted at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee and one that had been planted at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Police also discovered a cooler containing a gun and several Molotov cocktails on the grounds of the Capitol building.

ABOVE: Photograph of police attempting to barricade the doors to the House chamber with furniture to keep out the insurrectionists

ABOVE: Photograph of a pro-Trump insurrectionist hanging from the balcony of the Senate chamber directly in front of the Latin motto Annuit coeptis, which means “He approves of our undertaking”

The so-called “QAnon Shaman”

Most of the pro-Trump insurrectionists who were involved in the infiltration of the United States Capitol are clearly white male supremacists who see themselves as the rightful heirs to a tradition of violent white male supremacy supposedly stretching all the way back to ancient times. As such, the insurrectionists employed an eclectic blend of American, Confederate, Germanic, Celtic, Greek, and Roman iconography.

One of the insurrectionist leaders was a right-wing provocateur named Jake Angeli, who calls himself “the QAnon Shaman.” He entered the Capitol entirely shirtless with his torso covered in tattoos of symbols from Germanic polytheism, including Thor’s hammer and the valknut. Both of these symbols are extremely popular among white supremacists. He had a long, scraggly beard and his face was painted with the bright red, white, and blue colors of the American flag.

On his head, he wore an enormous fur hat with bulls’ horns. This rather unusual piece of headgear is evidently meant to remind people of portrayals of Germanic warriors in modern popular culture, since they are often portrayed in modern media wearing fur clothes and horned helmets. In historical reality, although ancient Germanic peoples did sometimes wear fur, their clothes were usually mostly made from wool. Meanwhile, it is unlikely that any ancient people ever wore horned helmets into battle; there are a few surviving examples of horned helmets, but they were almost certainly used solely for ceremonial purposes.

In photographs of him taken inside the Capitol building during the putsch, the so-called “QAnon Shaman” can be seen holding a spear with an iron spearpoint with an American flag mounted on it. He has previously been photographed holding this same spear with a cardboard sign mounted on it bearing the words: “Q Sent Me.”

ABOVE: Photograph of Jake Angeli, the right-wing insurrectionist who calls himself “the QAnon Shaman,” taken in July 2020

ABOVE: Photograph of Jake Angeli inside the Capitol building along with a few of his fellow insurrectionists on 6 January 2021

Aaron Mostofsky’s Germanic warrior/police officer outfit

Another right-wing insurrectionist who took part in the storming of the Capitol was Aaron Mostofsky, whom the website Gothamist identifies as the politically well-connected son of Shlomo Mostofsky, a prominent figure in New York City’s Orthodox Jewish community and former president of the National Council of Young Israel who is currently serving as a judge on the Brooklyn Supreme Court.

Aaron Mostofsky was photographed inside the Capitol, wearing furs and a black bulletproof vest with the word “POLICE” written on it in white, all-capital letters. In his left hand, he carried a wooden staff and, in his right hand, he carried the kind of transparent shield normally used by riot police.

The furs and the wooden staff are evidently meant to remind people of portrayals of Germanic warriors in modern popular culture. Meanwhile, the police vest and shield are evidently meant to remind people of law enforcement. Many police officers in the United States are white supremacists with authoritarian political leanings and the Trump supporters who took part in the insurrection at the Capitol clearly regard the police force as their ally.

ABOVE: Photograph of Aaron Mostofsky, a pro-Trump insurrectionist who is also the politically well-connected son of a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge, inside the Capitol building alongside another insurrectionist holding the Battle Flag of Northern Virginia

Man dressed as Captain Moroni in a Roman-style costume

In addition to drawing on Germanic iconography, the Trump supporters at the Capitol also drew on ancient Roman iconography. Notably, one man wearing a costume that was clearly meant to evoke the image of a Roman general was recorded standing in a crowd outside the Capitol building holding a banner.

Dr. Karen Carr, a professor emerita of classical studies from Portland State University (PSU), initially identified this man in a tweet as Julius Caesar. A later response by Brian Coussens, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, however, seems to reveal that the man is actually supposed to be Captain Moroni, a military commander who supposedly lived in the first century BCE who is described in the Book of Mormon and held in very high regard by members of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter-Day Saints. Although Captain Moroni is described as a Nephite in the Book of Mormon, the man at the Capitol was clearly wearing a very Roman-style costume.

The man dressed as Captain Moroni may be the same one who is mentioned in an article by Luke Mogelson titled “Among the Insurrectionists,” which was published in The New Yorker on 15 January 2021. In the article, Mogelson writes:

“I followed an overweight man in a Roman-era costume—sandals, cape, armguards, dagger—away from the bleachers and onto an open terrace on the Capitol’s main level.”

This seems to match the description of the man dressed as Captain Moroni who was identified on Twitter.

ABOVE: Screenshot shared by Antiquipop on Twitter of a video taken by ABC News showing the man wearing a Roman-style Captain Moroni costume

Julius Caesar symbolism

Although the man dressed in the Roman-style costume may not have been dressed specifically as Julius Caesar, the insurrectionists did make extensive use of Caesarian rhetoric. As many of my readers are probably already aware, in 50 BCE, the Roman Senate declared that Julius Caesar’s term as proconsul was over and ordered him to disband his army and return to Rome. Caesar refused to do this because he knew that this would leave him open to criminal prosecution by his political enemies, so, instead, in January 59 BCE, he marched one of his legions across the Rubicon River and illegally seized control of the city of Rome by military force.

About two weeks before the insurrection at the Capitol, a Reddit group dedicated to monitoring activity on the far-right social media platform Parler (which the insurrectionists used to plan the insurrection that took place on 6 January) documented a post on Parler showing an image of Donald Trump as Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon River with the words: “TRUMP CROSSING THE RUBICON? 20M AMERICANS DEMAND MILITARY ACTION FROM PRESIDENT TRUMP TO SAFEGUARD THE REPUBLIC AS HASHTAG GOES VIRAL ON TWITTER.”

The meaning of this post is transparently obvious; the maker of the post was overtly asking Trump to use his authority as the commander-in-chief of the United States military to stage a violent coup d’état.

ABOVE: Image of a post originally made on Parler a few weeks before the insurrection at the Capitol, urging Donald Trump to “cross the Rubicon” and use his authority over the United States military to stage a coup

Trump’s militant supporters didn’t just use Julius Caesar as part of their rhetoric before the insurrection; they continued to use exactly the same rhetoric while the insurrection was ongoing. At the rally outside the Capitol building during the insurrection on January 6th, a person wearing a red coat and a mask with American flags on it was photographed holding a sign with an image of Donald Trump’s face Photoshopped over an image of the character Maximus from the 2000 historical drama film Gladiator with the words: “THE DIE IS CAST! CROSS THE RUBICON, PRESIDENT TRUMP!!!”

This photograph was brought to attention by Dr. Sarah Bond, a professor of history at the University of Iowa, on Twitter. As far as I am aware, the identities of both the person holding the sign and the photographer who took the picture are still unknown.

ABOVE: Photograph shared by Dr. Sarah Bond on Twitter of a person at the rally outside the Capitol on 6 January, holding a sign evidently meant to represent Trump as Julius Caesar, urging him to “cross the Rubicon”

Man dressed as a Spartan warrior

There are also photographs of an unidentified man standing outside the Capitol wearing a red-white-and-blue Corinthian helmet with the words “Trump 2020.” The photographs also show the man wearing a Trump flag as a cape. It is abundantly clear that this costume is based on the costumes that Spartan warriors are portrayed as wearing in the blockbuster 2006 epic fantasy action film 300.

I’ve already written extensively in this article from November 2019 about how right-wing extremists are obsessed with ancient Sparta and how the movie 300 in particular promotes an extremely harmful, white supremacist message. This example is only further proof of how toxic the obsession with ancient Sparta among modern right-wingers truly is.

ABOVE: Photograph taken by Jose Luis Magana of a man standing outside the Capitol wearing a red-white-and-blue Corinthian helmet with the words “Trump 2020” on it

Man with the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia

Naturally, the insurrectionists also used a lot of Confederate symbolism. Notably, one insurrectionist who was photographed alongside Aaron Mostofsky can be seen flying the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia (i.e., a Confederate battle flag, commonly known as “the Confederate flag”) inside the Capitol building itself—something that never happened during the Civil War. As far as I am currently aware, this man has not yet been identified, but I hope he will be identified soon so he can be brought to trial.

The fact that the Confederate flag was actually flown inside the United States Capitol building is a testament to how dangerously influential the idea of the Confederacy still is among contemporary right-wing extremists and white supremacists, but also a testament to how dangerously influential right-wing extremists and white supremacists have become within our nation itself.

ABOVE: Photograph of the insurrectionist with the Confederate flag walking inside the Capitol building during the insurrection

ABOVE: Photograph of the insurrectionist with the Confederate flag passing into another room while Aaron Mostofsky sits on a bench

Another prominent example of Neo-Confederate symbolism could be seen directly outside the Capitol, where a group of Trump supporters set up a gallows with an empty noose, implying their intention to lynch any lawmakers whom they regarded as treasonous. The noose, of course, immediately reminds anyone who sees it of the brutal lynchings of Black people and other minorities that were common across much of the United States throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

There is a certain irony in the fact that the demonstrators were using both Italian Roman iconography and the lynching noose as symbols, considering that, as I discuss in this article from September 2020, Italian immigrants were often victims of lynching. Indeed, one of the single largest mass lynchings in American history was the murder of eleven Italian men by a mob in New Orleans on 14 March 1891.

ABOVE: Photograph taken by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds for the AFP depicting a gallows with an empty noose set up in front of the Capitol during the insurrection on 6 January 2021

Disturbingly, the noose that was hung in front of the Capitol was not the only one that was spotted that day. In front of the Washington Monument, demonstrators were spotted raising up a white mannequin into the air with a noose tied around its neck and the word “TRAITOR” written across its front in all capital letters and underlined. Once again, this imagery clearly hearkens back to the era of lynchings.

The fact that the mannequin is white and that it has the word “TRAITOR” written on it is also significant, since this suggests that the demonstrators specifically wanted to hang white Republican lawmakers whom they perceived as traitors to their own kind. This seems to relate back to the notion of “race traitors.”

ABOVE: Photograph taken by Ictor J. Blue for Bloomberg, showing demonstrators raising a white mannequin with the word “TRAITOR” on it and a noose wrapped around its neck in front of the Washington Monument

Other prominent flags

In addition to the American flag and the battle flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, various pro-Trump protesters outside the Capitol building and insurrectionists inside the Capitol building were also photographed displaying the “Betsy Ross flag,” the 2020 Trump campaign flag, the Gadsden flag, the Thin Blue Line flag, the QAnon flag, the flag of the Culpepper minutemen, and a whole host of other flags. The website Quartz has an excellent article analyzing some of the flags that were visible at the insurrection, where these flags originate from, and what these flags symbolize.

ABOVE: Photograph from Quartz showing Trump supporters gathered outside the Capitol on 6 January 2021 holding various flags and banners

There are, however, a few notable flags spotted at the scene of the insurrection that the Quartz article does not address. One of these is a black flag with the Greek phrase “μολὼν λαβέ” written on it in white, all-capital lettering along the bottom and the white outline of a Corinthian helmet in the center.

As I discuss in this article I wrote in December 2019, “μολὼν λαβέ” is the reply that is said to have been given by King Leonidas I of Sparta when the Achaemenid Persian shah Xerxes I ordered him and his army to hand over their weapons before the Battle of Thermopylai in 480 BCE. The phrase literally means “Having come, take” and refers to the weapons that Xerxes reportedly asked Leonidas to hand over.

Trump supporters, gun activists, and white supremacists are obsessed with this slogan, even though Leonidas almost certainly never actually used it, since the earliest surviving source to mention anything about the phrase is Ploutarchos of Chaironeia’s treatise Sayings of the Spartans, which was written over five hundred years after Leonidas’s death.

ABOVE: Screenshot taken by Liv Mariah Yarrow from The Washington Post’s livestream of the insurrection at the Capitol building showing a man waving a black “μολὼν λαβέ” flag and a version of the Gadsden flag

ABOVE: Image of the full version of the “μολὼν λαβέ” flag that was flown at the pro-Trump insurrection

Also notably, a group of Iranian American Trump supporters were spotted outside the Capitol building flying the state flag of the Pahlavi Dynasty, which ruled Iran from 1925 to 1979. This flag has green, white, and red stripes with the image of a yellow lion bearing a sword in the center.

In 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom orchestrated a coup d’état in Iran in which they overthrew Iran’s democratically-elected prime minister and greatly increased the power of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last shah of the Pahlavi Dynasty. I suppose, then, that it’s oddly fitting that the Pahlavi flag should be flown today by supporters of a coup to give greater power to a would-be authoritarian ruler.

ABOVE: Photograph taken by Andrew Beaujon of protesters outside the Capitol building flying the state flag of the Iranian Pahlavi Dynasty

President Trump’s initial response to the pro-Trump insurrection

At 4:22 p.m. EST, President Donald Trump released a video on social media in which he spoke directly to the insurrectionists, reiterated his claim that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent, and declared his support for the insurrectionists, assuring them that he “loves” them and that they are “very special.” Here is the full transcript of what Trump says in the video:

“I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us. It was a landslide election, and everyone knows it—especially the other side—but you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don’t want anybody hurt.”

“It’s a very tough period of time. There’s never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us—from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election, but we can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special. You’ve seen what happens. You see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home, and go home in peace.”

Later that evening, President Trump issued a response to the insurrection on Twitter in which he once again reiterated his claim that the 2020 presidential election was fraudulent and declared his support for the insurrectionists, despite urging them to go home, saying:

“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”

Thus, Trump made it abundantly clear that his sympathies lie with the insurrectionists.

ABOVE: Screenshot of President Donald Trump directly addressing the insurrectionists in a video he released on social media

What should we do about this?

There are a lot of things that we should do in response to insurrection at the Capitol. For one thing, Donald Trump should unquestionably be impeached and removed from office as soon as possible. He should have been impeached and removed from office years ago. Now he has literally openly declared his support for an attempted fascist coup. If he manages to get away with this without being removed from office, it will send a message to future aspiring autocrats that this conduct is acceptable and that it will go unpunished.

Furthermore, all the fascist Trump supporters who took part in the storming of the Capitol should be arrested and charged with insurrection and sedition. If these people are not brought to justice, it will send the message that it is acceptable for violent mobs to storm the Capitol building to intimidate members of Congress into doing what they want. This is not something that should be permissible in our country.

Finally, we all need to think long and hard about how we talk about ancient and medieval European history. There’s a reason why so many of the insurrectionists were dressed as Germanic warriors, Roman generals, and Spartan hoplites. Unfortunately, there are a lot of scholars and popular authors out there who still write about ancient and medieval history in ways that nakedly glorify military violence and conquest. This really needs to stop. There is nothing glorious about war; all violence is an abomination.

Military leaders like Alexandros III (i.e., “Alexander the Great”), Julius Caesar, Octavian, and Carolus Magnus (i.e., “Charlemagne”) were not “great heroes” or “mighty unifiers”; they were violent conquerors. Although all these men did do some things that we can admire even today, their good achievements are vastly outweighed by the atrocities they committed. When scholars glorify these men, they are only providing fodder for right-wing extremists.

It is also more important than ever for people who know about ancient history to emphasize that ancient Greece and Rome were not inherently “white civilizations” like so many Trump supporters and other white supremacists nowadays seem to believe.

I myself wrote an article in September 2020 talking about how the ancient Greeks and Romans had no concept of a “white race,” about how many Anglo people in the United States a hundred years ago did not consider Greek and Italian people fully “white,” and about how there were many people in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds who still wouldn’t be considered “white” even today. I think that these things are very important for us to talk about.