Last week, amidst the raving and the lies and the misinformation of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) “America Uncanceled” money pit, some people pointed out that the stage design for the event had a very particular shape. In fact, many people thought that the shape of the stage was more than reminiscent of the Nazi Odal rune—also known as the Othala rune. The use of the runic alphabet system’s symbology was a part of the Nazi mythologizing in the 20th century about its Aryan history. Taken to mean property or ancestral property, you can see why a bunch of Nazis fetishizing blood lines and purity would take to such symbology. You would also consider the relationship between the conservative movement and white supremacists a context that might make its appearance at a big conservative event distressing.
CPAC organizers very quickly dismissed this design similarity as “outrageous and slanderous.” Hyatt Hotels, the chain housing this big collection of lies, said they had nothing to do with the design and denounced symbols like the Odal rune as “abhorrent.” CPAC chair Matt Schlapp tweeted that “Stage design conspiracies are outrageous and slanderous. We have a long standing commitment to the Jewish community. Cancel culture extremists must address antisemitism within their own ranks. CPAC proudly stands with our Jewish allies, including those speaking from this stage.” Of course, when you are the political party that houses Rep. Marjorie Greene and wildly anti-Semitic conspiracy theories connecting Jewish world domination to child sex trafficking and Muslim caliphates and the Democratic Party, forgive me if I stare at you with a jaundiced eye.
Hyatt has now released an additional statement trying to further distance the hotel chain from the CPAC 2021 convention with a long press release basically saying that they believe in all kinds of things like “inclusivity” and while hosting CPAC 2021 was done in the spirit of the peaceful expression of views, they are super bummed to find out that the right-wing, white supremacist-supporting CPAC stage looks like a Nazi rune.
When we learned that CPAC 2021 stage design had been compared to a symbol of hate, we promptly raised this concern with meeting organizers who strongly denied any connection to such symbols. Had we initially recognized the potential connections to hate symbolism, we would have proactively addressed it prior to commencement of the event. Unfortunately, this became clear to us only after the event kicked off. With CPAC’s denial of any intentional connection to hate symbols and our concerns over the safety of guests and colleagues in what could have been a disruptive situation, we allowed the event to continue. We understand and respect the opinions of those who might disagree with that decision.
They “strongly denied” it, y’all. You might remember this CPAC 2021 convention as the anti-”cancel culture” event that “canceled” one speaker right out of the gate for … super super old school anti-Semitism.
Here’s how it started.
Weird, right? There’s a part of me that wonders if they were aware, or if this is what white supremacists call a “happy accident.”