After Trump presidency, I do see a lot of Nazi logo and SS fashion in the US.
I ride a motorcycle and go to many bike events, there have always been motorcycles with these logos on them, and bikers with Nazi helmets. I guess some may be neo-Nazis, but never had much of a problem as most of the time, bikers are just bikers, and we don’t judge.
Before COVID-19, I was in Laconia bike week, and felt that things are changing. The number of neo-Nazis are increasing and they now refuse to sit with black bikers. There are also a lot more racist slurs thrown at everyone else that is not them in the event, so much that the police is called to usher them away.
I am quite shocked to see the SS bolts in many styling on cars, motorcycles and jackets.
The SS Bolts are a common white supremacist/neo-Nazi symbol derived from Schutzstaffel (SS) of Nazi Germany. The SS, led by Heinrich Himmler, maintained the police state of Nazi Germany. Its members ranged from agents of the Gestapo to soldiers of the Waffen (armed) SS to guards at concentration and death camps.
The SS symbol is derived from the “sowilo” or “sun” rune, a character in the pre-Roman runic alphabet associated with the “s” sound. The Nazis derived many of their symbols from such pre-Roman images. Because the sowilo rune resembles a lightning bolt (with flat ends instead of pointed ends), the SS symbol has come to be associated with a lightning bolt image.
Following World War II, the SS bolts symbol was adopted by white supremacists and neo-Nazis worldwide. Most white supremacists use it in its Nazi form, as two bolt-like images with flattened ends. However, sometimes the symbol may have pointed bottom ends or pointed tops and bottoms. These variants of the SS bolts are most frequently associated with prison tattoos.
The SS bolts are typically used as a symbol of white supremacy but there is one context in which this is not necessarily always so. Decades ago, some outlaw biker gangs appropriated several Nazi-related symbols, including the SS bolts, essentially as shock symbols or symbols of rebellion or…
