Southern goes on to endorse the Crusades, writing, "Like sword-wielding versions of Twisted Sister, Christendom declared 'We're not gonna take it anymore,'" and "The Crusaders did absolutely nothing wrong," before concluding, "I'm going to be hoisting the flag and saying 'Deus Vult.'" [Again, italics hers.] "Deus Vult," or "God Wills," was the battle cry of the First Crusade, declared by Pope Urban II, and another dog whistle for the extremist right, where it?s used as a rallying cry against Islam.
In 2017, Southern began focusing her attention beyond Canada?s borders. She appeared at the violent UC Berkeley racist rally in mid-April wearing an Army surplus helmet with a large "MAGA" sticker plastered across it, protected by a contingent of Proud Boys. She rallied the white nationalist troops, declaring, "If I don?t show up here, I?ll tell antifa right now, another patriot will show up in my place," and "We will win the war for Berkeley."
In May, Southern joined a group of European members of Generation Identitaire (Generation Identity), a far-right anti-immigration group, who'd chartered a ship in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Italy, where she live-streamed their group shooting flares at a search and rescue ship called the Aquarius, operated by SOS Mediterranee with support from Medicins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders). SOS Mediterranee is a European charity that rescues people in distress in the Mediterranean, including stranded refugees.
"So guys, if the politicians won't stop the boats, we?ll stop the boats," Southern says in her livestream. The Italian Coast Guard detained Southern and her allies for a brief time before releasing them, but Generation Identitaire had the video it needed to start a crowdfunding campaign for its "Defend Europe" initiative.