This is both a dogwhistle to gun nuts and Nazis/KKK/Proud Boys/III Percenters and all the fascists.

Let's talk "molon labe." https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1352005648125292544

At the Battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes demanded that Leonidas lay down their arms and surrender.

Leonidas' reply? "μολὼν λαβέ."

Come and take (them).

There was a movie about this, and well, people like buff white guys in their underpants standing tough.

Especially other white guys.

The problem is that, well, Sparta lost. Xerxes CAME AND TOOK THEM.

But in a reversal of history being written by the winner, Sparta emerged as the hero. A glorious last stand against the vast Persian horde.

If that sounds racist, it is.

It fetishized both the nature of tragic "honorable" death against terrible odds, it also became a point of pride for Europeans. https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-far-right-perverts-ancient-historyand-why-it-matters

The idea that has enthralled the alt-right is that Leonidas died in "honorable" hand to hand combat, while the Persians used trickery and deceit.

From the above.

The echoes of Sparta—remember, they lost—persist in dozens of town names, and school mascots.

Sparta has become a metaphor for defiance in the face of innumerable odds, and (temporarily) elevated people like Custer to civic sainthood.

The celebration of Custer's last stand is particularly galling in that THE US WERE THE INVADERS, coming to seize natives from their lands and cultures.

Basically, gold was discovered in the Black Hills; and if there's one thing we love above all in this country, it's money. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sioux_War_of_1876

(The US isn't the Federation, we're the Ferengi.)

The 7th Cavalry died so white people could get gold that didn't belong to them.

And for years thereafter, Sitting Bull was the bad guy.

Molon labe feeds into the alt-right notion of an increasingly non-white America being "stolen" from foreign invaders, even of those "foreigners" as every bit as American as any white guy in a red MAGA hat.

And for Ted Cruz to wear that mask in Inauguration Day—2 weeks after an insurrectionist mob tried to overturn a free and fair election—says to the wingnuts that he is one of them.