There has been an unfortunate uptick in public displays of the Roman salute, among men specifically.
But the fact of the matter is that young, online men have been at this for a while: Their veiled and unveiled interest in Hitler has not likely decreased but has not likely increased. It is more obvious but not more dangerous.
As such, the breadth of the matter is not the problem now. The push and pull between the Left and the Right is what keeps the joke alive and provocative.
If Roman salutes are becoming more common, overt Nazism, thankfully, is not — at least on the Right. The gesture is an older military salute on which the Nazis, and other fascist regimes, modeled their own. Our present phenomenon makes conservatives look plain amoral, but more than anything else, it reveals a political balancing act.
Barring Elon Musk‘s foray into the controversy, the men whom the media have accused of performing the salute probably did mean to do so. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon gave one at the end of his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, as did Mexican actor Eduardo Verastegui in the same setting. The jury is still out on Anglican minister Calvin Robinson.
Their version of the salute is one that mimics Musk’s innocent one rather than an authentic Nazi tribute. This intentional ambiguity is the difficulty: It is a type of trolling that leans into the Left’s incessant smears of fascism on right-wing men. Before an empathetic audience, it is coy and self-aware.
Such empathy is the domain of male CPAC attendees, whom Vice President JD Vance addressed with encouragement against “a culture that sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge.” He is correct: The Democratic Party has a man problem. And in large part, its ridicule of masculinity is where this strain of men’s reactionary politics, this trend of half-hearted Roman salutes for the sake of the polemic, stems.
FOLLOWING 2024 DISASTER, DEMOCRATS LOOK TO RECLAIM STATUS AS ‘PARTY OF THE WORKER’
For every conservative speaker giving a supposed Roman salute, there is at least one all-in leftist buying into the bit. Respondents accuse what they see and advocate further suppression.
The thing is, both sides are buying into the other. That much should be clear by now: When right-wing men take the accusation to bat again and again, left-wing commentators rush to the catch. It is a feedback loop of willingness to play a part. Obstinacy and stagnation accompany it, but no threat to the established order.