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Musk's gesture "very much a fascist salute" driven by attention-grabbing, expert says
FRANCE 24 English
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1/21/2025
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00:00
analysis. Paul Jackson, Professor of the History of Radicalism and Extremism at
00:05
the University of Northampton, joins us live. Paul, thanks for being with us. What
00:09
do you make of that Musk salute? Well, I mean, I think it's not particularly
00:14
surprising given the kind of the wider pattern behaviour we've seen from
00:18
Musk over the past few years. I find it also quite interesting, I suppose, to see
00:24
the kind of the debate about whether or not this should constitute a fascist
00:27
salute. As a historian of fascism, I think that this very much is a fascist
00:32
salute and it's quite clear, you know, what the intention was to symbolise.
00:37
So, yeah, it's a very interesting development to see. I think one of the
00:42
things to kind of say about it, though, and it kind of, in a way, undermines this
00:45
whole segment, is one of the points of doing this sort of thing is to be
00:49
provocative and it is to create these sorts of media appearances. Sometimes it
00:55
feels a little fourth form, doesn't it? You know, sort of like an adolescent
00:59
trying to shock for the sake of it. Well, perhaps. And, as I say, I think there is
01:05
something attention-grabbing about this and I think that's probably quite a
01:09
large part of the point of doing this sort of thing. As I say, I think the
01:12
symbol is clearly a fascist salute. Whether that makes him a fascist is
01:16
perhaps much more complex and debatable, let alone Donald Trump. So, I think we're
01:20
seeing a kind of a particular kind of phenomenon here about seizing the
01:25
agenda, creating shock and outrage, creating a certain kind of mood around
01:30
the sense of the inauguration and such like. So, I think we need to be a little
01:34
bit careful about not hype this as well. Indeed. So, let's not sort of, I should
01:40
say, let's not hype it. But earlier this month, Musk sat down for a very, it's been
01:46
described as an interview, but that would give it journalistic credence. It was a
01:49
conversation, quite a fawning conversation, with the head of the
01:53
Alternative für Deutschland, which is the far-right group in Germany and he
01:57
was very praising and very bowed down to in many ways Alice Weidel, their leader.
02:03
Doesn't that give the salute a different kind of context? Well, I mean, I don't
02:10
think it's too tricky to kind of make the argument that Elon Musk is kind of
02:14
severely engaging with sort of a far extreme right politics and that sort of
02:19
agenda. In the UK, he's been supportive of people like Tommy Robinson as well. So, we
02:26
can kind of see a kind of a long-standing pattern here. He's also
02:29
been doing things over the last few years like reposting Beppe the Frog
02:34
memes, which is quite a well-known far and extreme right symbol. I suppose the
02:39
word fascism in particular has a, you know, sort of a specific set of meanings.
02:43
And I suppose one of the things to kind of say about this, his defense, is that
02:48
he has said that the fascism attack is quite overdone. Whatever we can say about
02:55
the Trump election, there was quite a lot about fear-mongering around Trump being
02:59
specifically fascist. That didn't seem to stop him getting elected. So, the word
03:04
fascism and the meaning of fascism perhaps is also something in the modern
03:07
context, something to think about here. Maybe it's losing a certain sense of
03:13
aura or significance as well. I think you're right. I think it's been diluted
03:19
completely because of the over-accusation of it, I think. And it's created this
03:24
situation and more and more people are feeling more and more at home with those
03:27
kind of extreme views, hard right, to give it a less explosive label, I suppose.
03:33
And certainly that would be the case in the UK. Just to pick up on the Tommy
03:36
Robinson remarks, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, the jailed far-right extremist, I think
03:42
it's fair to say, who Musk says should lead the Reform Party rather than Nigel
03:48
Farage. Nigel Farage, of course, famous for his stance creating Brexit and having
03:52
very sort of like far-right, hard-right views, shall we say. And again, Musk
03:57
interfering with things to create a more far-right agenda. Again, we're trying not
04:02
to say this is controversial or trying to be controversialist about it.
04:06
However, his actions and his gestures seem to point that way.
04:10
Yeah, well, as I say, the word fascism is perhaps a little bit tricky. I think the
04:15
word hard-right is perhaps a bit woolly and problematic. I think the word, the
04:20
term far-right is quite sort of well understood as a general term. So he is in
04:26
that far-right space, for sure. As I say, he's engaging with parties who are also in
04:29
that far-right space, sometimes at the more legal end of the spectrum, sometimes
04:34
crossing over the line into illegality, as we see with people like Robinson. So
04:38
and as I say, he's kind of playing around with the various symbols and such
04:42
like of that movement online as well through Twitter. So he's definitely in
04:47
that space. I mean, you know, exactly how you might want to place him is perhaps a
04:52
little open to debate. But that's where his politics very much seems to
04:56
be. And as I say, that's a successful politics in America at the moment, more
05:00
broadly. And that's, I find at least, quite a quite a worrisome development in
05:06
the modern world. Add to that the fact that he is so rich, 400 billion dollars
05:11
in his back pocket. He could go out and buy a football team tomorrow if he
05:14
wanted to, couldn't he? He's got that kind of cash. If he didn't have that kind of
05:18
cash, he might come across, say, as a kind of barroom boar who stands there sort of
05:22
spouting off at the bar, that kind of thing. But he isn't that person. He's a
05:26
very rich person who has the ear of the US president. And we're seeing policies
05:31
from Trump, which are, I think, more and more extreme.
05:36
Yes, as I say, I think making too many sort of straight comparisons with the
05:40
Intour era and fascism is problematic, not least because you don't see the
05:44
newness to what's being developed here. So this is something different. And
05:48
that's probably why it's succeeding. You know, the sort of the truly neo-Nazi
05:51
groups in America aren't getting elected, but they are getting a boost from all
05:56
of this as well. But with Musk, perhaps in particular, one of the kind of the
06:03
concerning things, I suppose, is also around the atmosphere, around the
06:06
changing dynamics of social media, which obviously he's pioneering through his
06:10
purchase of Twitter, now X. So the ways in which moderation and much more
06:15
extreme content are becoming much more prevalent on those platforms. For a few
06:19
years at the beginning of this decade, it seemed to be sort of traveling in the
06:22
other direction. But now a lot of that moderation is going. Well, that's going
06:26
to create an ever kind of more kind of complex and messy environment of
06:32
problematic views, extremist views, all the rest of it being quite freely
06:36
disseminated to large numbers of people online. So as well as having the ear of
06:41
the president, as you put it, he has that power and they're connected as well.
06:46
And that's probably how this this nexus has helped to sort of emerged.
06:50
Indeed. Paul Jackson, pleasure speaking to you. Thank you for shedding light on
06:54
the situation and give us your analysis. We really appreciate it. Paul Jackson,
06:57
professor of the history of radicalism and extremism from the University of
07:01
Northampton there in central England. Paul, thank you for joining us. We
07:05
continue to watch all developments, of course, on Trump, Trump's entourage, Elon
07:09
Musk and everything that's happening in the United States. Let's turn now to the
07:13
Middle East.
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