Fallen Australian personality Pete Evans had an interesting weekend, including calls for a boycott.
First, the former My Kitchen Rules host prompted calls for Coles and Pan MacMillan to stop stocking his products, after appearing on a podcast declaring people with the coronavirus aren’t contagious.
This comes despite Evans previously trying to sell $15,000 lamps that would eradicate the virus from your body. Moreover, he’s said that “sunlight”, “self-love” and “hugging” could work as COVID-19 vaccines.
The absurdity didn’t end there. Unbelievably, Evans took himself to a new low with an image he posted to Facebook last night, which implies that Nazism is a ‘transformation’ of Trumpism.
The post was reportedly a hit with far-right groups.
In the image, a caterpillar wearing a ‘Make America Great Again’ hat tells a butterfly adorned with a Nazi symbol on its wings, “you’ve changed”.
The butterfly replies “we’re supposed to”. Evans captioned the post “an oldie but a goodie” alongside a peace symbol, love heart and rainbow.
He later edited the caption by adding: “There are many different interpretations of this image” and “Peace and love to all always”, followed by a folded hands emoji.
Is Evans in approval of Trumpism and neo-Nazism? Potentially.
The image could also be read as a disavowal of both, but given Evans’ public endorsement of Donald Trump, many commenters have read the post as the former.
https://twitter.com/Jeff_Sparrow/status/1328069641600606210?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1328069641600606210%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fjunkee.com%2Fpete-evans-nazi-symbol%2F278643
The symbol depicted on the butterfly is a ‘Sonnenrad’, which the Anti-Defamation League describes as “one of a number of ancient European symbols appropriated by the Nazis”. Neo-Nazis and other modern white supremacists have adopted the image.
Furthermore, the symbol was used on the cover of the manifesto of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shooter—an Australian man who killed 51 people in an act of white supremacy against Muslims.
After social media users pointed out what the symbol was to Evans, he said he was aware of its meaning, writing: “I was waiting for someone to notice that”.
The Facebook post is still live, at time of writing.
