Look, guys: I know you think it’s funny because you’re trolls. I understand that the troll sense of humor is dark and mysterious, and “normies” like us just don’t get how your keen wit and edgy jocularity work.
But after national outrage, after watching people lose their jobs [1] over this, after being told by actual victims of the Holocaust that it’s gross, it really is time to stop parroting the Nazi salute that Elon Musk did at the inauguration.
I even understand why you’re doing it. You want to normalize what Musk did and keep pretending it wasn’t what it clearly was. So you’re oh-so-carefully doing the Nazi salute exactly the way that Elon did it, presuming that the fact that you look so ridiculous doing it will indicate to the rest of the world that it was ridiculous to think Elon really meant it, either.
Here’s the latest. Calvin Robinson, from the Anglican Catholic Church, has been in charge of St. Paul’s Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan for years. He was delivering a speech to the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C. when he concluded with a nearly exact replication of Musk’s offensive gesture at Donald Trump’s inauguration.
He’s since been de-priest-ified:
Grand Rapids, MI: Meet fascist priest, Calvin Robinson, who gave a Nazi salute at the National Pro-Life Summit in DC to laughter from the audience. He has been the Priest-in-Charge at St. Paul’s Anglican Church in Grand Rapids. Today the College of Bishops revoked his license. pic.twitter.com/Nw3h2QWu9G [2]
— Extreme Michigan (@ExtremeMichigan) January 30, 2025 [3]
I’ll note a couple of things here:
Number one, the folks who keep doing what I’m now going to call the “Elon Salute” (since it includes a phrase) are doing it wrong. When Musk did it, he pounded his chest, hard, then snapped his arm out in a military-style stiff-arm. He did that TWICE, then paused significantly before saying “My heart goes out to you.” The people we’ve seen replicating it are patting their actual hearts softly and issuing the phrase as they complete the gesture.
I would do all the side-by-side stuff, but I’m not trying to pollute your screen real estate with Elon Salutes or Nazi Salutes, or any of that. You guys have already seen all of it.
But number two, I have to say, I don’t actually think Father Mr. Robinson is a Nazi, despite the very Nazi-like soundbite in the clip above. “The last stand for Christendom” sounds a LOT like Hitler’s use of language, and if you squint your ears and use “Germany” where he says “America,” you can almost hear the Austrian accent of a guy with short man syndrome.
Instead, I think he’s just a very partisan dude who thinks it’s appropriate to not only express his political beliefs from his position as a religious leader, but to do it in a way that he totally knows is going to be offensive to a lot of people, which is kind of the opposite of what priests are supposed to do.
I’m just saying, you never read an account of Jesus mocking a disabled reporter before distributing loaves and fishes.
The thing is, I actually do think Elon Musk is a Nazi, or at the very least a Nazi sympathizer, which, to me, is a distinction without a difference. I think that’s what these folks trying to mimic him, and therefore minimize what he did, are missing in the whole equation. Yes, they made the gesture look silly when they did it.
But did they buy Twitter and as a first order of business reinstate the formerly banned accounts of known white supremacists and Nazis? Did they share a meme all the way back in 2022 [4] of a Nazi soldier, then tell everyone to vote GOP? Did they, just days after doing their version of the Elon Salute, do a giant virtual address to the campaign kickoff of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland political party, which has been censured by the German government as being too reminiscent of Nazis, and classified by German intelligence as an extremist organization?
I know, too early to tell on that last one — the priest just did his salute yesterday. He might address a new German neo-Nazi party tomorrow or the next day, to tell them to stop feeling guilty about their past.
I think that’s the problem, even, with the regular old American Trump voters who are defending Elon Musk just because he’s Trump’s right-hand man. If they’re not secretly harboring Nazi tendencies, surely they have no idea that Elon is. And he’s not actually making a secret of it, they’re just looking the other way.
But the real rub is this: The original Nazi salute was used as a symbol, a gesture to show other people what your political identity was. Sometimes it came without the hand-snapping arm motion, simply the words “Heil Hitler” sufficing to denote their allegiance. But it was universally used symbolically. Obviously it’s not a gesture that mimics any kind of normal motion, so it’s a gesture that is tailored for a specific purpose, like a password or a secret knock or handshake.
And that’s how they’re using it now. They are, without saying the words “I agree with Trump and Elon Musk,” saying exactly that. They are demonstrating their political allegiance.
Let’s hope they figure it out soon. Because it’s one thing entirely to just not grok the fact that it’s more than a little uncouth to “joke around” using Nazi nostalgia.
It’s another thing altogether to use irony to accidentally become exactly what you’re “joking” about.