When Is A Nazi Salute Not a Nazi Salute?
The arm gesture heard ’round the world
Oon the day of Trump’s inauguration, Musk was onstage in Washington, D.C. Winding up his speech, he threw a stiff arm in the air in a what has come to be known as a Nazi salute. Then he turned to face the rest of the crowd and did it again, his form even more closely matching the heel clicking goose steppers he was imitating.
As a dogwhistle he claimed the arm gesture was simply the physical expression of his subsequent statement that “my heart goes out to you.” Horsefeathers.
Germans recognised it for what it was. Nazis recognized it for what it was. The Anti-Defamation League gave it a half hearted but surprising pass, perhaps concerned about aid to Israel being reduced now that Musk has Trump’s ear, especially given Musk’s other displays of antisemitism.
It WaS a RoMaN SaLuTe
Wrongo in the congo. There is zero historical evidence that Romans used this gesture. It’s not found in Roman literature and is never mentioned by ancient Roman historians. Not a single Roman work of art displays a salute of this kind. The gesture of the raised right arm or hand in Roman and other ancient cultures that does exist in surviving literature and art had a significantly different function and is never identical with the modern straight-arm salute.
So where did the idea that it’s “Roman” come from?
In the late 18th and into the 19th century (long after the fall of the Roman empire – if this is how you found out, I’m sorry) it became popular to depict this pose in neoclassic paintings. Originating from Jacques-Louis David‘s painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784), the gesture quickly developed a historically inaccurate association with Roman republican and imperial culture.
Artists often love a good trope, and the salute and its false attribution to Roman culture were further developed in other neoclassic artworks.
Benito Mussolini, who coined the term Fascism in 1915, decided he liked the pose and the implied classic origin. He created what disingenuous people now call a “Roman Salute”, using its false origin to give it gravitas. And when Hitler and Mussolini became chums, Hitler annexed that salute so hard that now people know it as a Nazi salute.
Which is why Laura Smith, a local GOP official in Towamencin Township, Pennsylvania was “encouraged” to resign after making the same gesture as Elon in a TikTok video, attempting the same “my heart goes out to you” dogwhistle.
Jaques-Louis David's painting The Oath of the Horatii
“But Liberals do it too!”
Right after Musk’s arm raise to white nationalists and middle finger to decency, the Alt Reich scrambled to minimize it. The Roman salute garbage addressed above. Musk’s self diagnosis of autism. And when those failed, they fell back on claiming that liberal politicians and public figures have made the same gesture. They created still images from videos, cherrypicking the exact frame where a person’s arm was stiffly extended, and yelled “SEE?”
We do not see, Nazi. Because whenever we asked for the video, the person making the false claim would shut up and vanish or switch to personal attacks.
Musk himself posted manipulated images of pop star Taylor Swift allegedly making the gesture – but a look at the video the image was manipulated from exposes his lie.
So why did Elon make such a gesture? Insiders tell us he was butthurt that Trump ignored two of his “suggestions” for cabinet positions in favor of those chosen by Jabba the Hutt accidental cosplayer Steve Bannon and his band of white nationalist supporters.
The implication is that Musk seiged his heil to win over some of Bannon’s supporters and to show he’s one of them. And from their enthusiastic response, he was right.
Not to be outmanouvered, Bannon took to stage at CPAC and threw another Nazi salute. Jordan Bardella, the leader of the National Rally in France — a country where the use of Nazi imagery and slogans is punished by law — pulled out of the conference as a result.
The alt reich and MAGA attempt to gaslight us by saying Musk, Bannon, et al are “just trolling”. Any student of history who paid attention in class will recognize this pattern of claiming harmful things are innocuous.
Don’t let them gaslight you. Don’t let them lie it away. It is what you saw.
