Over in the US of A, the Trumptastic shenanigans continue. Amongst the lowlights so far for me has been the sight of an overly energetic Elon Musk excitedly making what looked very much like a Nazi salute to a crowd of Trump supporters at an inauguration event. The gesture, which Musk made a number of times, was identified as a Nazi salute by both the Israeli press and far right antisemitic white supremacists, two groups which are not otherwise often in agreement
Musk’s fanboys have tried to claim that it was no such thing, merely a clumsy attempt to hail (or should that be heil?) his supporters in the crowd and give them his heart. However, there are videos on the internet of white supremacists making the exact same gesture Musk did, hand on heart and then arm extended in a Nazi salute. Those Nazis were very clear what Musk meant.
Musk could drown a bag full of newborn kittens and useful idiots would make excuses for him. Musk must be either a Nazi sympathiser or a moron, although there’s considerable overlap between the two. The denials might have more credibility if Musk was noted for his commitment to fighting racism and bigotry: for his commitment to real freedom of speech and opinion, not just that which agrees with him. But this is a man who habitually platforms extreme right racist conspiracy theories, supports far right parties across Europe and who altered Twitter’s algorithms to boost racist and far right content. Was the gesture a Nazi salute? If the jackboot fits.....wear it. Musk is engaged in an explicit and concerted effort to project the most extreme far-right political groups across Western democracy into power and he particularly loves the German far right. According to Musk and the media, it was all just our lying leftist eyes. We didn’t see him do a Nazi salute. It was a “controversial and awkward gesture” that “sparked debate”. And pigs fly, Elon, pigs fly.
At the inauguration itself, multi-billionaire tech oligarchs got front row seats while Trump’s ordinary supporters were literally locked out in the cold. Some metaphors need no further explanation.
Trump himself issued a torrent of presidential executive orders lifted straight from the far right Project 2025 playbook, which he had denied having anything to do with prior to his election victory. One order was to rename the Gulf of Mexico, the Gulf of America, something Trump doesn’t actually have the power to do as it is not an internal body of water entirely within the USA. The rest of the world doesn’t need to go along with Trump’s grandiose fantasy. Instead we should call it the Gulf Between Trump’s Lies and The Truth.
Other orders include withdrawing the USA from the Paris Climate Accords and the World Health Organisation, mass deportations of undocumented migrants, the reclassification of thousands of federal employees as political appointees, meaning civil servants can be fired and replaced by Trump loyalists. There were the expected attacks on the trans community and orders to rip up measures aimed at tackling structural racism. Women’s reproductive rights are next in the firing line. The US government website reproductiverights.gov went offline on the evening of the inauguration, the site contained information on access to abortion and reproductive health care and a Know-Your-Rights patient fact sheet. Search results for abortion have been scrubbed from the federal Department of Health and Human Services website.
It’s not just women and minorities who should be afraid, the anti-vaxxers and climate change deniers are now in charge of the White House. Efforts to combat the climate emergency just took a huge step backwards. Trump effectively declared war on Panama by insisting that the USA will seize the Panama Canal.
No one had 'America declares war on Denmark and Canada' on their 2025 bingo cards, but that’s where we are now. While Trump has spoken of using economic force in order to pressurise Canadians into agreeing to annexation by the USA, he has not ruled out using the military to gain control of the Panama Canal and Greenland. It’s quite possible that one reason Trump wants to annex Canada is because the combined area of Canada and the USA is 7,651,842 sq miles, which would make it the largest country in the world, much bigger than Russia with its 6,601,670 sq miles. Control of Greenland would add a further 836,330 sq miles to Trump’s fiefdom for a total of 8,488,172 sq miles, 1,886,502 sq miles larger than Russia. That would appeal to Trump’s addled brain and his egoistical desire to always be the biggest. His would definitely be bigger than Putin's.
The world is now an even more uncertain place than it already was. Trump has said he is not confident of the ceasefire in Gaza holding – absolutely no one is – and added that Gaza needs to be rebuilt “in a different way.” He did not elaborate but given that he is surrounded by advisors who support the Israeli far right, that “different way” is unlikely to be one which is beneficial to the Palestinians. Trump has previously spoken about the great ‘beachfront real estate’ Gaza offers. It is unlikely he sees a place for Palestinians in his redeveloped Gaza, other than as a labour force with minimal rights employed doing the most menial jobs.
What goes for Trump goes double for Elon Musk, a man whose mental stability must now be called into question. Whether or not Musk’s gesture was, in fact, a Nazi salute, there is no question that Musk has a habit of using his obscene wealth to promote fascists and racists. He spreads racist conspiracy theories and misinformation and is quite prepared to meddle in the affairs of other countries in order to bring down democratically elected governments. The question is "how long will he be tolerated by Trump?". And how long do we have to wait to see one of Starmer's acolytes doing a brown-nose job on him, in the same vein as Mandy's nauseating sycophancy over Trump?
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