We Don't Tolerate N*zi Discourse
Do not normalize fascist speech or iconography
One of my enduring lessons from the first Trump administration is that everyday folk like you and me are responsible for speaking loudly and confidently about things we see with our own eyes.
January 6 is an example.
This bloody day remains a stain on the history of democracy. The Capitol, inarguably the most sacred grounds for American democracy, freedom, and justice, was attacked, breached, and overrun. Congressional members’ offices were vandalized, and the members themselves were threatened, intimidated, and fled or hid for their lives. Police were assaulted, including the death of an officer and subsequent deaths by suicide. The sitting Vice President’s life was threatened. President Trump sat in the White House watching the live coverage, refusing to make a public statement despite allies like Fox News hosts texting Trump’s Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows, pleading with him to pressure the President into calling off the assault.
When Trump finally did record a statement to send the rioters home, he told the violent mob that he loved them and that they were very special people. Since then, Trump has described January 6 as a “day of love.”
It was a day of white supremacist organized violence. Both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were in attendance, arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced, and now pardoned.
Elon Musk’s Nazi salute is another example.
Mealy-mouthed statements about awkward gestures distort the truth of what we witnessed with our own eyes. Musk repeats the gesture twice. Arguments that Musk was only stimming or excited or that interpreting his gesture as a fascist symbol are uncharitable fall apart when you see he tweeted a Holocaust joke after the salute.
If that weren’t enough—Nazi salutes and Holocaust jokes, to be clear, are fairly definitive evidence of fascism, but if you remain unconvinced, we could introduce Musk’s long history of alt-right and neo-Nazi sympathies, not least of which is his current vocal endorsement of the hard right, Neo-Nazi AfD party in Germany. In the same week as the saute and the jokes, he told this party, this German party with Neo-Nazi affiliations, that it was time to move past the guilt of their grandparents and great-grandparents.
X (Twitter) has become a cesspool of conspiracy theories and far-right hate speech. Musk has eliminated AI ethics from the platform and dismissed content moderation (which Meta seems to be repeating), he’s reinstated formerly banned accounts, and he regularly retweets misinformation and conspiracy theories.
What’s more, Musk has not taken any steps to address his hand gesture. At best, his silence is complicity. At worst, he’s pleased that he’s emboldened white supremacists. That isn’t dissimilar from Trump’s “stand back and stand by” remarks involving the Proud Boys—who, yes, took that to be an endorsement. The same Proud Boys whose leader Trump just pardoned.
Clearly, the preponderance of evidence brought to bear on Musk and his hand gestures combined with his management of X and his rhetoric in the world prosecute the case. Musk is a far-right technofascist whose power exceeds that of elected officials. He is patently anti-democratic. So, was it a Nazi salute? Yes. Is Musk a Nazi?
The question misses the larger social context, which is the slow normalization of Nazi discourse in the public sphere. Neo-Nazi groups hang banners from highway overpasses. They march in our communities. The Moms for Liberty used a quote from Adolf Hitler in one of their newsletters. Rioters at the Capitol wore anti-Judaic apparel, now pardoned. The mob at the Unite the Right rally chanted, “Jews will not replace us.”
The country has a Nazi problem.
Let me make this clear: I have a zero-tolerance policy on Nazis. And you should, too. I respect Ben Cohen and understand the take. I also understand that I think we’re missing a public condemnation of Musk and a dismissal from the ranks of our national politics.
In a recent live, AOC said that two things are foundational to America: We beat the Confederates, and we beat the Nazis.
But the conversation isn’t only about Musk, or X, or the damning statements about Trump’s fascist ideology from his former top military brass. The problem is that fascism is trying its hardest to get a foothold in our culture. And it’s not the first time.
The salutes, the apparel, the highway overpass banners, and the marches in our streets are not primarily aimed at recruitment, though I fear that is one outcome. The problem is that placing these groups in our faces normalizes them as a part of our society. It allows fascist discourse into our mainstream media environment because it is so shocking. And the media loves outrage. So all of a sudden, we see a Nazi march, and we think, “Ope, there go the Nazis again.” We see someone give a fascist salute from behind the Presidential Seal, and we waffle over a decisive condemnation. As many have observed online, it wouldn’t surprise many of us if we see this “awkward gesture” at future Trump rallies.
This is the wake-up call—or it could be a death knell. Either way, we do not tolerate Nazi discourse, symbols, signs, and iconography because the first step to fascism is allowing the ideology to get a foothold in mainstream discourse. When the local 6:00 pm news is covering a Nazi march without condemnation because we don’t want to editorialize, it lends credibility to the movement. Suddenly, we don’t balk at swastikas, and we extend charity to the wealthiest man on the planet who bought himself a role in the White House, who endorses Neo-Nazis on social media, and who gives fascist salutes.
As I’ve posted online recently, “You’re never wrong for calling out Nazis.”