Here’s the video of Steve Bannon at the recent “Conservative Political Action Conference” (which Trump also spoke at)—listen to the whole riff he does leading into his Nazi salute. 

Oh, and here’s the one of Musk (Bannon’s rival, and Trump’s current number one bro) at Trump’s inaugural festivities.  

Musk replied to the controversy with “light-hearted” puns—Nazi  puns: On X, he posted, “Don’t say Hess to Nazi accusations!”¹ and “Bet you did nazi that coming.”

What are they saluting? A movement that seized power through “legitimate means” and then proceeded to crush dissent and throw out the rule of law. A regime that launched a war that killed between 40 and 60 million people, including 27 million (!) people in the then-socialist Soviet Union. A regime that forbade dissent and burnt books… a regime that forced every German to greet each other with the same gesture Bannon and Musk are shown making above and saying, instead of “hello,” “Heil Hitler!"… a regime that murdered six million Jews in concentration camps, as well as thousands of Roma people (known as gypsies), gay people and others. 

That’s what they are saluting. That’s what Musk is oh-so-saucily wisecracking about.

Backing Up A “Neo”-Nazi Party

Earlier in the week, European heads of state met with Vice-President JD Vance at Munich, in a “security conference.” But the most notable thing at the conference—aside from Trump’s sharp turn on Ukraine—was Vance’s backing for the Alternative for Germany (AfD). AfD is regarded by other mainstream German parties as untouchable due to what seems to be a strong affinity for straight-up Naziism. The AfD is forbidden by current German laws from openly expressing this so right now they prefer to operate through dog whistles, signifying, and “inside references”—sort of “if you know, you know,” except just about everyone in Germany does know.

To take one example, at a recent meeting in Halle, the AfD hailed its leader, Alice Weidel. Weidel is a lesbian married to a Sri Lankan immigrant, so she certainly can’t be a Nazi, right? When Weidel appeared on stage at the meeting, thousands chanted “Alice für Deutschland”—which is, innocently enough, “Alice for Germany.” Except if you happen to know the phrase “Alles für Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”)—a Nazi slogan that was engraved on the knives of the SS!

Elon Musk spoke (virtually) at this meeting as well. Musk upheld German nationalism (“It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything”), and said that Germany has “too much of a focus on past guilt.” He said that AfD has the support of the “Trump administration” and said that “The fate of the world, I think rests upon this election in Germany.” Rather strong words from someone who right now is wielding an extraordinary amount of power and influence.

Two weeks later, was Vance’s speech at the Munich conference. Vance seemed intent on clearing a path to power for AfD. He said that “There is no room for firewalls”—i.e., AfD should be admitted into the government and the major parties should drop their agreement to not allow AfD into any coalition government.² Vance whipped up fear of immigrants, referencing a few recent terror attacks: “Over the span of a decade, we saw the horrors wrought by these decisions yesterday in this very city.” 

Then Vance said Germany’s main enemy was not Russia or China but “the enemy within.” Vance specifically attacked laws supposedly limiting “free speech” (including distance mandates for protests at abortion clinics but also limitations on and penalties for holocaust denial, use of Nazi slogans, etc.).  Referring to these restrictions on speech, Vance said “If you are running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you.”

After the speech was over, Vance met with Alice Weidel on the sidelines, further normalizing and legitimizing her party and her candidacy, while going out of his way to snub current Chancellor Olaf Scholz.  (Also worth noting is that AfD co-chief Tino Chrupalla was the only German party leader invited to U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration.)

Think about what this means: a U.S. vice president comes to a conference of almost all 32 countries in NATO and focuses on going after the establishment parties in Germany, while giving as much support as he can to the neo-Nazi party! 

Do NOT Pretend Not To See

This is real—about as real as it gets.

The people running this country… the people rapidly concentrating more and more power in their hands… these people are repeatedly making clear—while preserving a thinner and thinner tissue of “deniability”—that they are Nazis. By doing this in an increasingly open way, they are puffing up their social base and signaling them to take the offensive—to strut, intimidate and threaten through making clear their mentality and what they are ready to do.

Fascism has direction and momentum. It can become too late to stop it. There is still time now, but not infinite time. It took a world war to stop the original Nazis, once fascism had consolidated in Germany. Looking back on the terrible toll exacted by waiting for something else to somehow rescue them for the Nazis, Martin Niemöller, a German Protestant pastor imprisoned by Hitler from 1937 to 1945 made this point:

"We can talk ourselves out of [our need for atonement] with the excuse that ‘it would have cost me my head if I had spoken out'," Niemöller said. Then he went on:

We preferred to keep silent. We are certainly not without guilt or fault and I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934, 14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths? If we had said back then, "It is not right when Hermann Göring simply puts 100,000 communists in concentration camps in order to let them die." I can imagine that perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 Protestant Christians would have had their heads cut off, but I can also imagine we would have rescued 30 to 40 million people, because that is what it [cost us].

No one can say in advance what the struggle in this time will require of people. But Bob Avakian has said this, and it can serve as a watchword for how to approach the challenge we face:

This is not a time for demoralization and despair. It is not a time for accepting this Trump/MAGA fascism as “legitimate,” and staying within the confines of “how things work” under this system, as Democratic Party heads and other “mainstream” ruling class representatives are urging people to do. It is not a time for turning inward and attempting to “take care of self” as the juggernaut of Trump/MAGA fascism gains momentum and crushes masses of people. This is a time for reaching out to all the others who feel the same outrage at Trump/MAGA fascism—a time for collective action and self-sacrificing struggle for the greater good: the greater good of defeating this fascism.