Hey kids, history is useful. For example, a lot of Nazis today love to say there is no true Nazi, and that they can’t ever be called one credibly, while they plainly do everything they think that a Nazi would.
The accusations against Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino have merit not least of all from the costume history perspective. This is what a Nazi would and did wear.
While no single element exclusively says Nazi costume, the curated combination of elements is unmistakable visual quotation of the SS officer aesthetics. If it wears a kilt, it’s well on its way to being a Scotsman. When seeing a red bearded heavy man with a loud brogue tossing a caber, while in a kilt, if you can’t admit a true Scotsman at some point, you’ve failed 101 logic.
Bovino is displaying an obvious Nazi costume.
We aren’t talking accidental resemblance, because achieving this specific silhouette requires very deliberate tailoring choices that reference very particular historical moment. This is not a generic “military coat.” He even boasts how this unique costuming was less scrutinized under Biden, deploying a Nazi tactic to blame others for failing to stop a rise of Nazism sooner.
It’s actually worse than that, rhetorically, because Bovino went from quietly attending a ceremony in his costume, as if nervously dog whistling, to flaunting himself prominently. He pivoted under Trump to widely spreading DHS propaganda videos of the coat with “WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED” Nazi overlays, while leading masked stormtroopers through American cities. The false equivalence of obscure quiet hidden acts with his recent loud violent “Blackshirt” propaganda is actually more damning evidence against Bovino.
Let’s examine the costume uniqueness precisely, like how it might have appeared under 1940s sedition charges.
He flaunts a military-style greatcoat (Mantel) with the characteristic long length, wide shoulders, and dramatic cut associated with German officer coats of the 1930s-40s.
It features the out-of-style double-breasted closure with prominent metal buttons. It’s so dated, that Nazi SS officer greatcoats featured this exact configuration, typically with silver buttons against black wool.
The exaggerated lapel width is also out-of-style and an absurd-looking detail. It matches the theatrical styling of Nazi officer dress uniforms, designed by SS officer Karl Diebitsch to project absurdist authority and oversized intimidation. The coats literally were designed by the SS themselves, for Hugo Boss’ slaves to produce.
The black trench coat has been associated with mass shooters in America not by coincidence. The Nazi SS had specifically adopted black as their signature color (1932-1939), making black military-cut greatcoats particularly loaded as power projection garment by aspirational terrorists threatening democracy.
This coat’s overall gestalt is a high collar, cinched waist, flared skirt below, which conveys the exact SS officer profile.
Black and white isn’t the only reference. Here is what Bovino looks like in color.
Bovino was the only person among over a dozen federal agents invading Minneapolis while wearing a boxy greatcoat and scarf. Everyone else appeared in standard paramilitary tactical gear, as if a scene from Reagan’s shock troops committing crimes against humanity in Guatemala, Chad, Indonesia or Somalia. The costume of evil isn’t needed. But Bovino chose to propagandize it as Nazi stormtrooper operations through American neighborhoods, after ICE agents executed a 37-year-old mother of three.
Bovino then celebrated the execution by saying “Hats off to that ICE agent. I’m glad he made it out alive. I’m glad he’s with his family” invoking a Nazi hats off to Sippenhaft doctrine of family only for enforcers, orphans for anyone resisting.
The man wears Nazi shaped costume, throws a Nazi shaped salute, leads Nazi shaped paramilitary operations through American cities, celebrates Nazi shaped extrajudicial killing, for a Nazi shaped administration whose DHS account engages with self-identified Nazi sympathizers.
If not a Nazi, why so shaped like a Nazi?