Are you sure he can lift his arms that high?
I am sceptical as, so far, it just makes those who’ve done it look like kids trying too hard to be edgy. That said, the mask has slipped so perhaps he just doesn’t care any more and this is his moment to be hailed as Caesar.
What would make me more worried is a reaction shot of the crowd all saluting back like a Nuremberg rally.
However, perhaps that sledgehammer to the face is what some people require to make them realise they’ve fucked up voting for Trump and dropped everyone else into this too. I have a second cousin in the American branch of the family who took out an ad in 2020 saying to vote for Trump as Biden will take your guns (he is a member of the NRA but his politics was more centre-right before). I don’t talk politics with him when he visits but, next time, I really want to ask: “is this what you really wanted?”
They don’t have to pretend, the media is doing it for them.
He probably just saw some bird and he pointed at it surprised, or maybe it was a sudden rise in blood flow in his right arm leading to it stiffening. He could also have meant something entirely different with his strange gesture. While we can agree it was very odd, you can’t just accuse
nazisright-wing politicians of doing the Hitler salute without strong evidence!
Who’s the guy at the top? The name in the card says “courtesy Matt Schlapp, chairman CPAC”, but it doesn’t seem to be the same guy.
The question I keep asking my conservative family is, “When do we start to be concerned, at what point do we call them Nazis?”
It’s scary to think this kind of conversation is very similar to ones people had in 1930s Germany. Some people realised it was all going downhill quite early, some never admitted it was happening at all.
This tactic aims specifically at having the left discuss it. This gives Nazis a chance to reframe the discussion and promote their agenda. Source: https://www.salon.com/2025/01/22/elon-musks-salute-falls-flat-why-far-right-trolling-isnt-working-this-time/
What we should be doing instead of discussing this? Nazis will feel empowered to take the streets, as it happened in Ohio and Cincinnati. Just for the sake of historical accuracy, I suggest you study the history of the 1970’s anti-nazi practices in East London.
They solved their Nazi problems for years to come. Just go out and have some self-care. Touch grass. /s
They are still paying lip service that it’s not a Nazi salute for now. The coup is on the verge of gaining full control of the military at which point they’ll drop the pretense.
Mass protests will “justify” declaring martial law.
The current attacks on Zelenskyy “being a dictator” because there hasn’t been an election during the war is intended to get the American left to loudly proclaim that not holding elections during periods of martial law is justified. So when the Trump regime declares martial law, elections will become a thing of the past.
I wonder what rhetoric they’re gonna pivot to on China when the mask fully comes off. Surely they’re not going to mention authoritarianism ever again, only “They’re stealing our jobs. They’re cheating our tariffs. They’re threatening our military? They’re communist.”
Or maybe they still pretend the US are bastions of “freedom” and “democracy”, when that has never been true.
Here’s the problem why people are having a hard time wrapping their heads around it. Cognitive dissonance, They’re still expecting then to behave like politicians, Because A POLITICIAN WOULD NEVER DO THAT!!! They wouldn’t get re-elected! Doesn’t everybody understand that we fought against them! It’s just a grand gesture!
This is population mental whiplash on a grand scale. The problem is the mind always lags behind the body when reacting to danger. it’s what the mind decides to do next that will determine survival.
The fellow travelers will continue to deny it, while the self-identified fascists will become progressively more open with it. Vance and Musk and the rest of the reactionary neo-fascists don’t need to convince the average Republican they aren’t fascists, the average Republican has spent a decade or more pretending that the Republican Party hasn’t happily made itself a home for fascism in public life.
