Medievalist here. So GOP Senator Loeffler's new ads claim she's "more conservative than Attila the Hun" & joke about killing "liberal scribes." Obv from a historical viewpoint, this is just incorrect, but let's talk about the racist medievalism of the ad. #MedievalTwitter https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1308126358577520644

First up: ATTILA WAS NOT WHITE. The Huns were a multi-racial group from the Central Asian steppes, and Attila was very unlikely to be what we would now call white.

This is the classic white-washing of the Middle Ages.

Attila was not, as represented here, an incoherent barbarian who communicates in incomprehensible grunts and needs subtitles. He was the head of a multi-lingual empire and probably knew Hunnic, Latin, and Gothic.

Then there's the "liberal scribe" who does what I guess is meant to be a humorous double-take when Attila orders the liberal scribes to be killed.

Note the fez. The scribe's the only one who wears these. A casual dogwhistle tying liberalism to "the East."

This ad is a CLASSIC example of a conservative depiction of a white-washed Middle Ages that espouses "traditional" values and is represented as opposed to an Orientalized "East."

Also the scribe is kind of represented as effeminate compared to Attila and his court. He's the only clean one, is slight-figured, and has a kind of floppy wrist.

These are Attila's eager men obeying his orders to "attack the far left": again, white dudes, grimy, bad teeth, very masculine, delighted by violence, wearing clothing associated with medieval Western (Christian) Europe.

These ads are a-historical fantasy.

Attila's court was lavish, multi-racial, multi-lingual. He was a powerful figure who reshaped Western Europe and probably introduced a lot of central Asian steppe culture that basically reshaped European society and likely ushered in the Middle Ages.

His court had powerful women and was often considered more "civilized" than the Romans of the time. Priscus met a Greek member of his court who said the Huns were better than the Romans bc the Huns didn't let rich ppl didn't get away with crime. *stares at Trump*

This ad is ridiculous from a historical viewpoint, it confuses Attila with Genghis Khan (Genghis attacked China, not Attila) as others have noted. But it's also dangerous, erasing non-white history in service of far-right values and encouraging violently attacking the left.