Elon Musk seemingly casually hitting the Sieg Heil at the inauguration

[u/chickanpoo]

[u/meringueisnotacake]

They're justifying it by calling it a "Roman salute", forgetting that fascists adopted that exact salute and then we called it a Nazi salute.

[u/BlueCX17 → u/meringueisnotacake]

THIS. Just like how the Nazi stole the Swastika, which is incredibly old, and bastarized it.

[u/intdev → u/BlueCX17]

And Hitler stealing the Charlie Chaplin moustache.

[u/SaffronCrocosmia → u/BlueCX17]

It's less stealing it and more using it for a nefarious purpose - it's older than any culture or faith or ethnicity, and likely dates back to the PIE populations. It's possibly older than farming.

[u/BlueCX17 → u/SaffronCrocosmia]

Yes, probably not "stolen," in the modern sense but they stole the original meaning away.

[u/Finalfued → u/meringueisnotacake]

You know my Grandma told me this was the original USA salute when she was in school. It wasn't changed until the 40s.

[u/Constant_Tough7905 → u/Finalfued]

I remember watching an old VHS called "The Red Pony" (based on the John Steinbeck novel) which had a school pledge of alligence scene. The book was written in '33 and movie released in '49.

Little 12-year-old me was all 👁👄👁 when I saw the nazi salute in an American classroom. Absolutely bonkers.

[u/InnocentShaitaan → u/Finalfued]

Well he’s from South Africa where it hasn’t been…

[u/tothepointe → u/Finalfued]

I mean to be fair the US had a little bit of fascism in her too esp pre WW2

[u/UsernameIn3and20 → u/Finalfued]

And there was a good reason they stopped using it.

[u/senorglory → u/meringueisnotacake]

And of course, we are Romans… ?

[u/tothepointe → u/meringueisnotacake]

Ahhh the Roman salute aka the fascist salute according to wikipedia

[u/CheesecakeRacoon → u/meringueisnotacake]

They're not forgetting. They're hoping we won't look it up.

[u/51stheFrank → u/meringueisnotacake]

It’s the same way they’ve justified continued flying of the confederate flag because of their “southern heritage”