Tag Archives: fascist salutes

Steve Bannon has become the latest high profile political figure to give a fascist salute, with this one coming during the increasingly extreme CPAC convention.

I suspect that if a decade ago, you told someone that we would be having a debate on whether or not this is acceptable, you would have been met with incredulity, yet here we are. Of course, it all originated from Elon Musk. And if this had been an isolated incident, followed by a swift apology, then I could probably accept it. Perhaps I am being generous, but I honestly don’t believe Musk deliberately gave that salute – I believe he is a physically awkward individual who got carried away and performed a gesture that is, unfortunately, pretty much an exact replica of a fascist salute. Any reasonable person, on having this pointed out to them, would apologise immediately and pledge to be more careful in future.

But Musk, who seems determined to build his entire public persona around trolling his political foes (and I use the word ‘trolling’ very deliberately – most of his views are derived from internet memes and viral content with scant regard for factual accuracy), is not a reasonable person. Instead, he gave the impression of finding the furore it caused rather funny. In a more sensible political age, his supporters would have been keen not to shine a light on this most injudicious of actions, but we are so politically polarised now that they felt they had to not just back him but copy him. It reminds me of one of the very few true statements to have been uttered by Donald Trump – that he could “stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and (he) wouldn’t lose any voters”. Although ostensibly joking, there was sadly more truth in this than perhaps even he realised. The same is now broadly true of Elon Musk.