On Inauguration Day, Elon Musk, close associate of the president, gave a speech at the Capitol One Arena in Washington DC. Hopping towards the podium, he gave an impassioned speech expressing his excitement for the future of America under the second term of Donald Trump. While the content of his speech was nothing out of the ordinary nor news-worthy, a single gesture performed twice captured the attention of the country, in some ways overshadowing the rest of the news of that eventful day.

About one minute into his four minute speech, he thanked the American people for electing Donald Trump to a second term, though he expressed his gratitude in a way that shocked the world: He performed a Nazi salute.[1] Without witnessing it happen, the layman may be skeptical to believe that such a blatant symbol of hate could be at the fore of American politics, but they would be mistaken. What happened on Inauguration Day was undeniably exactly what it looked like, and yet millions of Americans have rushed to deny it for what it is. Why is that? First, some historical context.

History

The Nazi salute is an allegedly Roman gesture that was appropriated by the Italians in the early 20th century, though there is no historical basis for such a salute existing in Ancient Rome. Salutes involving an outstretched arm were common in various ancient Mediterranean civilizations, though they rarely, if ever, had a formalized structure to them. It is a natural and common gesture to make, both in professional and military life as well as in everyday greetings. Even today, we raise an arm to greet others with a wave, as have every other civilization in history. When speaking to a crowd, one extends an arm towards the crowd without thinking.

The French Revolution of 1789 saw a complete upheaval of French society, with the nation ditching old norms and establishing new ones while the French monarchy clung to its millenia-old ideals. This included a wave of artists producing nationalistic paintings, often using the old Roman Republic and Empire as aspirational symbols for the glory of Europe. One French artist in particular could very well be seen as being the originator of this myth about the Roman salute. In 1784, five years before the French Revolution, Jacques-Louis David was commissioned by the government to paint a Roman scene depicting loyalty to the state. With discontent growing in France at the increasingly inept monarchy, the crown commissioned a series of paintings in an effort to use culture to sway the people towards remaining loyal. Jacques-Louis David’s painting, Oath of the Horatii, depicts the leaders of a rebellious city capitulating and falling in line with Roman hegemon.

Oath of the Horatii, (Le Serment des Horaces), Jacques-Louis David 1784

The painting clearly depicts a now familiar gesture: Right arm outstretched pointed at head-level with the palm down and fingers straight. During the crisis of the Revolution and its aftermath, Jacques-Louis David was commissioned by the French state for two more loyalty-themed paintings, with The Tennis Court Oath in 1791 and The Distribution of the Eagle Standards in 1810. Artists will commonly use recurring symbolism and styles, and this gesture is no exception. Jacques-Louis David again used the outstretched arm as symbolic of loyalty to the state.[2]

The Tennis Court Oath, (Serment du Jeu de Paume), Jacques-Louis David 1791

The Distribution of the Eagle Standards, (Serment de l’armée fait à l’empereur après la distribution des aigles au champ de Mars, 5 décembre 1804), Jacques-Louis David 1810

Following this, the so-called Roman salute was adapted to the emerging medium of film, with the salute being present in the 1914 Italian film Cabiria, partially written by Gabriele d’Annunzio, an Italian nationalist who would later go on to have a role in Benito Mussolini’s government. Italy, being one of the Entente powers, was on the winning side of World War I, but that didn’t mean they were immune from losing territory. The 1919 Paris Peace Conference saw the Kingdom of Italy lose its ownership of the Adriatic city of Fiume. Gabriele d’Annunzio, an officer and veteran of the Great War, sought to reclaim control of the city and sent 2,500 Italian troops to occupy the city without the authority of the Italian government or military. Italy rejected this rogue annexation, but the city held de facto independence for fifteen months.[3]

This taste of power gave an already nationalistic Gabriele d’Annunzio an appetite for even more power, leading him to craft an ideological framework in his rulership of Fiume that would later inspire Benito Mussolini’s fascism movement. Mussolini and his Blackshirts gained control of Italy in 1922, and they brought with them the ideologies and practices of d’Annunzio, including the Roman salute. It wouldn’t be long until the salute was compulsory in Italian society.

Benito Mussolini saluting in front of a Roman statue, 1935

Adolf Hitler, leader of the Nazi Party in Germany, based much of his ideology of Nazism around Italian fascism, and as such, embraced the salute as a gesture of unquestioning loyalty to the state and its cult-like leader. It would often be accompanied by a short chant, the most common of which being “heil Hitler!” and “sieg heil!”, or “hail Hitler!” and “hail victory!” respectively. Much like in Italy, the Nazi salute quickly became compulsory in German society.

The Reichstag performing the Nazi salute in celebration of the Anschluss 1938

Europe wasn’t the only region in which this ancient yet new gesture took hold. In 1892, American author Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance. Within half a century, it was being recited in every school in America. Francis Bellamy paired this Pledge of Allegiance with a salute to be held up during the entire recital of the Pledge, this salute being identical to those in Jacques-Louis David’s paintings. Usage of the Bellamy salute grew increasingly unpopular during the 1920s and 1930s, but the United States’ entry into World War II permanently ended the practice in American schools, being replaced with putting one’s right hand on their heart instead of pointing towards the flag.[4]

Jewish school children performing the Bellamy salute Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 1934

After the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust, countries affected by the war were quick to make the Nazi salute illegal to perform, including Austria, Czechia, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Poland, Russia, Slovakia, and Ukraine. The Germans in particular do not take the Nazi salute lightly. As an example, in 2017, an American tourist in Dresden was beaten up for drunkenly performing the salute.[5] Plenty others have been detained and even imprisoned for the gesture.

Elon Musk And The Normalization of Fascism

To tie this back into the present day, Elon Musk, who has been gradually declining deeper into the abyss of anti-Semitism, excitedly ran onto the stage of the Capital One Arena to celebrate Donald Trump’s inauguration in front of a crowd of his supporters. As is often the case with Musk, his behavior prompted speculation that he was under the influence of one or more drugs, but that is an insignificant footnote compared to his next action. The world’s richest man thanked the country by firmly pressing his right hand to his heart and aggressively extending his arm out straight, palm down, fingers parallel, all while the crowd cheered. To put any doubt that it may have been an unfortunate and unintentional fluke, he turned around and did it again and followed it up by thanking the American people again, saying his heart goes out to them. What we saw was undeniably a Nazi salute. Every person who witnessed it should be in unanimous agreement of what it is: A blatant symbol of hate. And yet, despite the clarity of it, conservatives across the country rushed to excuse it away with a variety of responses: He’s autistic, he’s awkward, he was extending his heart out to the world, us leftists are just seeing phantom sieg heils, the list goes on.

Funny how conservatives have never once cared about autism awareness, yet they suddenly do once it’s politically convenient for them. I am autistic myself and know plenty of other neurodivergent people and we’ve never accidentally performed a Nazi salute. Have you ever seen a socially awkward person unintentionally throw up hate symbols? Do you recall ever seeing someone express thankfulness by performing a straight-armed salute?

The first step to allowing fascism to continue unchecked is to deny it’s there, and that’s exactly what Fox News did. In a quite unsubtle move, they abruptly cut the camera to show the audience at the exact moment he signaled to his fellow fascists.[6] This tactic was repeated on The Megyn Kelly Show where she also repeated the excuse that he was simply expressing his gratitude.[7] Conservative media has been twisting itself in knots trying to rationalize, justify, and normalize fascism. One could spend several paragraphs discussing the conservative mental gymnastics, but if there’s anyone who would recognize a Nazi, it’s other Nazis.

Rolling Stone magazine compiled far right reactions to the incident, and unlike mainstream conservatives, they didn’t deny it; in fact, they cheered it on. Various white nationalist and extreme right organizations and figures have come out in support of the salute, including the Proud Boys and Blood Tribe. The leader of the white supremacist organization White Lives Matter wrote on Telegram “Thanks for (sometimes) hearing us, Elon. The White Flame will rise again.” If the Nazis are calling it for what it is, then there is no excuse for the rest of the country to not recognize one of the most infamous hate symbols.[8]

In the aftermath of the incident, mainstream media has been a mix of ignoring the issue and treating it as it should be treated, but the damage has been done. Elon Musk has been in a downward spiral of extremism and buffoonish antics, and the normies of the general public are starting to connect the dots. In my opinion, while the increasingly overt fascism coming from the Republican Party benefits the left by exposing the party for who they really are, it is an unfortunate sign of a troubling four years.

This is the defining political moment of our lifetimes, and we cannot allow fascism to continue unchecked. We must resist tyranny at every turn, whether it’s abandoning now fascist-friendly social media platforms, boycotting corporations, shunning authoritarian states, or simply connecting with your local community to build support networks and organize resistance. Fascists can only take as much as we’re willing to give.