Not so long ago in this very galaxy, Elon Musk, recently promoted from DOGE catcher to Senior Advisor for President Donald Trump, stood in front of a cheering crowd and offered not one, but two straight-arm Nazi salutes. Here’s Musk in a paired video beside other Nazi saluters.
Musk’s and Trump’s supporters rushed to defend the actions as related to “autism” or “showing love” or, in the words of the Anti-Defamation League, and “awkward gesture.”
Since Musk, a now-former priest Calvin Robinson, Steve Bannon, comedian Eduardo Verástegui, and construction CEO, Tom Hill, have flashed the same salute.
The question for me is clear—it isn’t even a question. It is a Nazi salute at worst and a Nazi-adjacent salute at best. But there really is not a “best.” It’s fascism.
Some on the Far Right claim it’s a Roman salute, but historians put the lie to this claim. The “Roman salute” is a product of art and culture, not history. Sarah E. Bond, associate professor of history at the University of Iowa, writes,
[A]ncient military and film historian Gregory S. Aldrete explained that, although Ancient Romans did perform “various gestures involving raising the arm,” especially oratorical gestures when speaking, the so-called “Roman salute” was fabricated much later by visual artists and filmmakers.
This arts-inspired Roman salute was adopted by Mussolini’s Italian fascists in the early 1900s, then modified by the Nazis in Germany’s Third Reich. Anyone who has ever paid attention to anything related to World War 2—even Indiana Jones movies—knows a Nazi salute.
Now, as you can notice in the videos linked above, Musk and the Far Right have, sometimes, added a heart tap before the salute. They can call it an awkward gesture or the wave, it is still the fascist/Nazi salute, arm straight, palm down.
Here are some examples of the same awkward gesture from recent history.
(All photos taken from pages in Blood in the Face: The Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, Nazi Skinheads, and the Rise of a New White Culture, by James Ridgeway.)
Musk’s inauguration party salute, repeated by Steve Bannon at CPAC, and others elsewhere, is a fascist salute. Choose the Klan, Aryan Nations, Skinheads, Nazis, or Mussolini; it matters not. It’s so clearly a fascist salute, the original salute that accompanied the American pledge to the flag—the Bellamy Salute—was changed to hand over heart to distinguish it from fascism.
I expect more revision of the current crop of Nazi saluters until nothing is left but “I’m doing candy hearts with my arm.” But don’t fall for the gaslighting. The absolute best interpretation is the current Far Right, emblemized by Musk, has adopted a modified Nazi salute just as the Nazis adopted a modified Italian fascist salute. Fascists always gonna fascism.
fides quaerens intellectum
