It’s always been there, it’s just now coming to the surface.

Like shingles

it’s a combo of trolling and attention seeking. “there’s no such thing as bad press” and all that.

we should point it out, condemn it, but not engage in arguments with them about what is and isn’t a sig heil.

and when they pop up in other places trying to talk about other stuff, just bring up the fact that they threw a Nazi salute from time to time.

the most important thing is to focus on their evil policies and actions. but we can’t forget their performative evil.

“suddenly”

It’'s because the overall intent is not to unify the country under one government. It’s to keep the America fighting with itself so that it can’t interfere in Russian, Saudi and Chinese ambitions for an autocratic oligarchy. It’s in their best interests if America descends into the worst version of fascism that the world can dream up, and Trump’s GOP is entirely on their payroll.

Any potential positive government action by the GOP for the American people runs contrary to those goals, so they’ve turned to the tactics of fear and intimidation to maintain their hold on the population. Each public nazi salute is intentional, designed to strike fear and controversy into the hearts of the citizenry and publicly tarnish America’s image on the world stage.

Look at how Trump ran on inflation, but the only actions he’s taken have been to attack people’s livelihood or erode trust in federal and state institutions. He’s literally dismantling the federal government from the inside, but all anyone wants to talk about is the nazi salutes.

This is an intentional distraction.

This sort of thing doesn’t work in a strong democracy with an un-compromised media, but our democracy has been hollowed out by the cancer of Citizen’s United, rendering the power of a citizen’s vote near worthless, and by the likely election fraud performed by Musk. So they’re gloating and glorifying the symbol as a sign that no one can stop them.

See, the people in charge right now don’t care if the US collapses. They WANT it to. America has been the symbol of democratic freedom for the entire world. With the US abandoning that fight, there’s no real geopolitical power strong enough to take its place.

Which is exactly what Russia, China, and the Saudis want.

Fascism shouldn’t be thought of as a static “thing” or an object of ideology. Peoples beliefs come from their environment. We are so individualized as a society that often we as progressives take “personal responsibility” too far, we buy the premise implicitly without realizing there are flaws with thinking in this way. Every logical system has flaws and contradictions, its proven mathematically though I think some systems are more rigorous and based on evidence.

GWF Hegel’s philosophy of Right was written in 1820, and influenced political thought ever since. Liberalism was still in it’s revolutionary phase and theories about it were still fairly new, the Wealth of Nations was written just 50 years before, and Karl Marx was like two when it was released, although it would serve as the basis for much of his work analyzing the hidden relationships of Capital, and ethical political philosophy on the whole.

The book is the closest I think someone can honestly get to an actual “horseshoe theory” because not only did it influence the left but it also influenced the far right. Hegel, using the works of other great liberal philosophers such as Locke and Kant, who Hegel was always working to surpass, applied his dialectical philosophical methods to the writings of liberalism.

What he discovered was a natural tendency toward what we would calll fascism. Like he prefigured fascism by 100 years. He wasn’t a fascist, there was no such thing. He was just exploring the ideas of this revolutionary philosophy, one that purported to liberate the mind, body and spirit, and discovered the oppressive seeds which might grow into something quite different.

This isn’t to call liberals fascists, I’m a communist and 20th century communism had a lot of problems, to put it mildly. I would say confidently that progressive liberals are not crypto fash, in fact the term “progressive” is a typically left-Hegelian ideal, in that it describes human progress and development as the subject of history. Instead it challenges the idea of the liberatory nature of private property, a key component of liberal thought. Of course this is all depending how you look at it, right-Hegelians see this same formulation as proof of the inevitability of their ideas and justification for their actions.

You’re getting a lot of different opinions about this stuff so I’m trying to make sort of a different point about philosophy, history and action. Other reading for a deep dive on fascism is the essay Ur Fascism by Umberto Eco (great empirical analysis, but the least scientific IMO), Trotsky’s pamphlet Fascism: What it is and How to Fight It, and HA Roy’s Fasism, Its Philosophy, Professions and Practice.

In a way, fascism has always been there below the surface, informally shifting the sands of history until it was formalized in the early 20th century. I don’t think you can have a society based on private property without some elements of fascism somewhere. Mostly “western democracies” will outsource their extreme cruelty to other countries where it doesn’t affect their citizens.

But in summary, Fascism is the realization of the contradictions inherent in liberal ideology, its liberalism turned inside-out, with all its appearances of justice and freedom cut away, leaving only the logic of expansion and domination that most liberal democracies do their best to hide. This is how fascists are able to hide in our society, their individual beliefs are not completely unpalatable to centrists and conservatives who have also started to dispense with justice and freedom in the interest of national greatness. Its what makes their beliefs so malleable, and its also why liberals have such a hard time defining it. But fascism isn’t an individual’s beliefs, if it was it would be just regular bog-standard chauvinism. Fascism is a mass movement which will use charismatic leaders amenable to their politics to rally the masses.

In our society, the middle classes are the “battery” for fascism. Middle classes are constantly under attack under capitalism and the individuals often feel this and become paranoid (doomsday prepping, etc.,) and this paranoia and real social pressure to produce or be wiped out, the fear from the constant threat of precarity and uncertainty fits hand in glove with the aims and means of fascists.

It’s not a new thing, and while I don’t think it can be easily distilled into a social media reply. I’ll do my best.

This has been a 40-year process, beginning with Ronald Reagan and continuing incrementally with every president since, including Obama unironically. (Remember how he crushed Occupy and ignored Ferguson and legalized torture on New Years Day?) It’s become stronger as people have become poorer and more willing to not give a shit about the quality of our country’s leadership. Now every person not only has personal biases, but a computer in their pocket constantly telling them everything they think is correct and actively angering them. Hitler would have creamed himself at the thought of being able to dictate social media algorithms.

If people can’t afford to feed their kids or see a doctor, they’re not going to give a shit about fascism, and no matter who we elect, most people can’t afford to see a doctor and adequately feed their kids.

It’s going to be worse now than it had to be. In 2016 people were willing to punch Nazis. Now, you can render a Nazi salute twice, in the seat of government, in front of the entire Democratic leadership… and they will fucking clap and smile.

It’s funny, the posters over at r/conservative truly believe they aren’t nazis and say thing like why is the left so violent, you do anything and they call you a nazi etc etc.

Crazy they can’t see the wood for the trees. Maybe they should have a bit of introspection, like maybe look in to why everyone calls the leaders and followers nazis…

Ironic coming from the “sheeple” crowd.

But Seig Heils? Even the most dense among them must know that blatant Nazism hurts their legitimacy in the eyes of the public, even among MAGATs

“hE wAs jUSt joKING 😡😡😡” -every magat ever

Nazis are a symbol of power and authority for the far right the same way every international dictator has used hilters style of government to rule and oppress. They aspire to build a country similar to the one of the Nazis. Elements of this include: “christian” values, centralisation of power, uniting of the country, removal of “impures” (trans people).

Plenty of answers here but I don’t think anyone has answered this part:

Surely they would have a much easier time pushing their rhetoric and establishing their agenda by keeping a purposeful distance from that sort of indefensible imagery and symbolism.

So here’s my take …

Musk did the sig heil as a fuck you to everyone that doesn’t like him. That’s it.

They just won the election by basically lying, ignoring, and playing for time. They can literally do whatever the fuck they like for the next n years with impunity.

Imagine if Harris had won and in her victory speech said something like “Don’t worry Don, I’ll make sure they give you diapers in jail.” It would’ve been a low blow but we would’ve loved her for it because it’s poking fun at the conservatives for no other reason than to stir them up.

I think there’s another, longer conversation to be had about why racism (and by extension nazism) resonates with voters in 2025, but I’m too weary for that I think.

My theory is that they try to push the line on what is acceptable. For example, if you want something say you want 11 but what is acceptable is between 1 and 10. Then an 11 is not possible. But if you normalize 15 and keep pushing that, then 11 doesn’t seem so unreasonable after a while.

I see this being done constantly. Say that your plan is to do something extreme (take Canada), everyone panics and then get what you actually wanted. If nobody reacts, do the extreme thing.

It’s always been there. Just now that people in power are the Nazis ppl can come out

The fact that the salute is so offensive, they did it so blatantly, and their denial was so disingenuous is the point. It’s a demonstration of power. They can do a Nazi salute and their opponents can’t punish them. They can deny that they did a Nazi salute and their opponents can’t control the narrative. If they did something more subtle, then people might think that they weren’t facing any consequences because their opponents were giving them the benefit of the doubt. With the Nazi salute there is no doubt. The only explanation for why they aren’t facing any consequences is that their opponents are powerless.

Non-American here. My brother and dad STILL cling the the narrative of “He’s autistic, he was excited.” and nothing will disusde them from that.

I wonder the same, my theory is that this gesture is used both as a loyalty test and a way to further polarize society.

Making this gesture draws clear lines in society: those who say it was fine, those who say it wasn’t, those who don’t take a stance (ie the media calling it a “controversial gesture” or similar). So Musk & al now have a clearer idea of who stand where. It also cleaves those “for” and those “against” further away, solidifying their base.

Another explanation is this is part of the normalization of extreme rethoric and symbols. I doubt he could have gotten away with it ten years ago; who knows what they’ll be able to do and say in 2035?

Yet another possibility, he did it on a whim and the neo-nazis like Bannon are now seizing the opportunity. It’s unclear how planned this was and how intentional the consequences were.

(And all might be true at once)