The rise of Donald Trump has emboldened numerous purveyors of hate across the United States — but that doesn’t mean they’re very good at it. This past weekend, the so-called “Legion of St. Ambrose” posted what was supposed to be an intimidating video clip aimed at “enemies of Christ,” but it doesn’t appear as though much anyone who saw it anywhere fell victim to any kind of quaking in their boots.
The Anti-Defamation League identifies the “legion” as a white supremacist group, but if this tweeted clip represents what it is they’re trying to defend or whatever, they’ve not got much, to say the least — not that they ever appeared to in the first place.
Captioning a clip of a group of individuals dressed in all black including masks whose leader is flicking what appears to be paint — for some reason — the “legion” shared:
‘The cowardly, those who countersignal, do-nothings, traitors, the enemies of Christ, and the enemies of those who serve Him shall be dabbed on.’
The cowardly, those who countersignal, do-nothings, traitors, the enemies of Christ, and the enemies of those who serve Him shall be dabbed on. pic.twitter.com/Ftf0fqxbvw
— Legion of St. Ambrose (@AmbroseLegion) June 8, 2019
Wow, how… intimidating? Are they trying to make fools out of themselves? Turning yourself into a laughingstock to own the libs — what a foolproof strategy.
According to the ADL, the group is based in the Knoxville, Tennessee, area and is rather new, emerging just this year “from the ashes of the now defunct Traditionalist Worker Party,” which was comprised of neo-Nazis. They are seeking to — as their Twitter antics suggest — impose a form of Orthodox Christianity as a state religion, steamrolling over anything and anyone that gets in their way. As a symbol of their ideology, in March of this year, the group gathered in North Carolina for a book burning targeting works covering homosexuality, feminism, communism, and pagan religions.
The group sits among many other similar fringe outfits that have continued to descend on U.S. politics pushing for white supremacy, ending up at high-profile demonstrations of their position like the violence that rocked Charlottesville, Virginia, in late 2017. On the flip side though, there are also plenty of examples of their ideology fizzling out spectacularly, like when barely a couple dozen white nationalists showed up for what was supposed to be a repeat of the Virginia debacle in D.C.
Check out Twitter’s response to the Legion of St. Ambrose’s latest antics, which are definitely in line with that failed attempt at a Charlottesville 2.0.
