BJG

I am pleased to announce the publication of my OpEd, “80 Years After Auschwitz, Elon Musk Keeps the Fascist Salute Alive,” in Newsweek's Opinion section. The OpEd contends that not only was Elon Musk's stiffly-delivered one-arm salute at Donald J. Trump's post-inauguration rally an intentionally fascist gesture, his alignments with far-right political figures and parties in recent years definitively establishes the connection between his Roman salute and his illiberal political intentions. What's more, many neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups responded positively to Musk's provocative gesture, demonstrating the continuity of intended and perceived meanings between the latter and the former.

Below is an abstract for “80 Years After Auschwitz, Elon Musk Keeps the Fascist Salute Alive,” along with a URL where you can read the full OpEd.

For historians of fascism and Nazism, the meaning of Musk's one-armed gesture was unmistakable. While originating in ancient Rome, the Roman salute was appropriated by the poet-turned-Great War hero Gabriele D'Annunzio during his short-lived dictatorship in the Adriatic city of Fiume between 1919 and 1920. Much like many other rituals and symbols innovated by D'Annunzio during his Regency of Carnaro, including the Blackshirt and the leadership label of "Duce," the Roman salute was quickly incorporated into Benito Mussolini's National Fascist Party, which by 1926 had toppled Italy's liberal democracy, replacing it with a single-party fascist state.

Musk is, himself, no stranger to far-right politics. Similar to many 20th-century European fascists, Musk has expressed strong anxiety regarding what he perceives to be White demographic "decline" in the West, a disdain for labor unions and left-wing politics in general, and has even dabbled in promoting, however loosely, Holocaust denialism. During the past five or so years, Musk has cultivated relationships with a variety of far-right politicians and organizations, including Trump and his MAGA movement, Georgia Meloni and her allegedly "post-fascist" Brothers of Italy party, and Tommy Robinson of the anti-immigration Reform UK party, to name just a few. When one considers these affiliations between Musk and far-right parties in the U.S. and Europe, the intended meaning of his gesture in Washington D.C. comes into view.

Musk delivered an unmistakable, and reprehensible, fascist salute. And in doing so, he emboldened the far-right community in the United States and beyond, which now views itself—much like it did between 2016 and 2020—as increasingly mainstream and irrepressible.

It is high time that we confront this neo-fascist menace within our society before it metastasizes, like the social cancer that it is, and completely overtakes our increasingly fragile body politic. Because if we do not loudly condemn the popularization of fascist values, ideas, and practices in broad daylight, the next four years of a far-right Trump administration could very well quickly transform into a 20-year single-party dictatorship.

To read this OpEd, click on the button provided below.