Snapshot: Fascism Day One
Nazi salutes, pardons for violent criminals, threats of foreign invasion
This photograph of Elon Musk giving a Nazi salute while standing behind the seal of the President of the United States summarizes the reprehensible first day of the second Trump regime. This gesture was no accident. The richest man in the world gave Hitler’s sieg heil not once, but twice in rapid succession.
“Some elections are important, some are not. But this one, this one really mattered and I just want to say thank you for making it happen,” Musk said. Then he clapped his hand on his chest and aggressively, enthusiastically raised the Nazi salute. “It is thanks to you,” he told the Trump supporters at the post-inaugural event at Washington’s Capitol One Arena, “that the future of civilization is assured.”
While some legacy media minimized this act as a Roman salute or an “uncertain” gesture, let’s remember that this despicable man recently expressed his backing of Germany’s far-right, neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany party. Let’s not forget that his salute makes a mockery of the deaths of over 400,000 Americans who fought and died to defend democracy against these fascists in WWII, in addition to over 6 million Jews who were exterminated by Hitler and his monstrous regime.
Musk’s Nazi salute put an exclamation point on a number of related activities by his freshly inaugurated buddy Donald Trump. It was awful to watch him mouth the words of the oath of office— “to protect and defend the Constitution”—a charade meant to indicate that he gives a damn about that once-sacred document. He did that mouthing, by the way, without putting his hand on any Bible. And his backdrop in the warm and cozy Capitol rotunda where his insurrectionists gleefully paraded four years earlier was now comprised of tech-bro billionaires who’ve demonstrated their fealty to him since the election with their dollars and their kowtowing visits to Mar-a-Lago.
There was no inaugural parade outside in the cold, but there were Proud Boy militia men marching in the street like conquering heroes. Trump took little time to extract America from both the Paris climate agreement and the World Health Organization. As a subdued press corps looked on in the Oval Office, he also signed an executive order intended to end birthright citizenship which is enshrined in the 14th amendment of the Constitution (and which likely will eventually be assessed by the Supreme Court).
And the first day’s coup de grâce: Trump pardoned over 1,500 felons convicted for their participation in the Jan. 6 attacks at our Capitol. That includes several hundred convicted criminals who beat up police officers with deadly or dangerous weapons, who will now be among the violent felons released from prison and available to serve as paramilitary shock troops for the lawless Trump regime.
These insurrectionists, who all were at the Capitol to support Trump’s efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, will surely now be held up as heroes. We can only imagine how many still-traumatized and physically wounded police officers and good Americans who turned in to the authorities some of these angry, violent thugs must now worry for their personal safety.
There’s no sense in sugarcoating the nature of this vengeful, hateful, aggressive first day, intended to stoke fear and let Trump’s enemies know that he will ignore the rule of law and the Constitution to get what he wants.
In his inaugural address soon after noon—with Presidents Biden, Obama and Clinton looking on—Trump claimed that he wanted to be a peacemaker while also proudly threatening to invade Panama to reclaim the Panama Canal. He insisted America is “seemingly in complete disrepair,” then pledged that “all of this will change starting today” and “America's decline is over.”
This follows his pattern of claiming things are broken and in crisis—which, if true, is likely of his own making—and then presenting himself as the only one who can fix it. But this time he went further with the messianic claim that he was “saved by God” from an assassin’s bullet “to make America great again.”
Our response cannot be to simply express outrage over every transgression. We will have to pick our battles and decide where we will focus and expend our energies for maximum impact. I know, for example, that the deportation efforts will be high on my list. I hope you will let me know both where your priorities are and what you’d like me to spotlight in the weeks and months ahead.
This is a marathon, not a sprint. We have to calibrate our actions and our emotions to be in this battle for the long haul. There are already lawyers armed with lawsuits and other advocacy groups gearing up to oppose the hateful onslaught intended to intimidate and silence the opposition. We can count on this regime’s overreach and incompetence to minimize at least some of the damage.
But let’s not doubt that we are facing, as Martin Luther King, Jr. described it, “the fierce urgency of now.” As he put it from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial over six decades ago, “This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.” Our renewed defense of democracy starts now.
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What is on Trump's mind - is himself. But this dire situation goes beyond this simple statement. I now firmly believe that Donald Trump is psychotic and criminally insane - someone who is considered legally insane is unable to understand the nature of their actions, distinguish between right and wrong, or know what they are doing. (AI Ovewrview)
The whole world is attempting to "normalize this man" and he is NOT normal.
In November 1923, Hitler and other members of the Nazi Party attempted to overthrow the German government. The government managed to stop this coupe, and Adolf Hitler was arrested and imprisoned for his role in instigating the Beer Hall Putsch. He was put on trial for treason, convicted, but served only nine months of his five years (due to a sympathetic judge). He then turned his attention to spreading propaganda and gaining votes. " (William Braden, a Substack author) He brainwashed an entire peaceful nation into mass murderers. “He had a firm belief in his own righteousness and that helped him manifest a charisma that drew others to his cause. On the other hand, his belief that he knew better than his generals probably helped him lose the war he started." (Ibid)
According to Hitler, "ultimate authority rested with him and extended downward." Hitler's madness literally butchered and slaughtered over six million humans, and an estimated 25 million on the battlefields attempting to stop Hitler's insanity and derangement.. (https://www.bbc.co.uk)
This Hitler comparison to Donald Trump is an exact replica to 100 years ago. Trump has clearly stated that he will put millions of immigrants into detention camps and/or deport them. He has not mentioned what will happen to them while in these "camps" nor does he care. The last time he was in office, immigrant children were separated from their parents, and many grew up in prison-like conditions without parental love and guidance. He has also mentioned that he would like to acquire Greenland, Panama, and Canada - even if it requires force. (NBC, Jan. 7, 2025)
Like Hitler, Donald Trump committed treason as defined by our Constitution. He has managed to avoid trial and prison. Jack Smith's report on the criminal and treasonous charges against Trump make an ironclad case. He has also committed a long, long list of other previously judicated crimes and is now legally designated as a felon, a fraud, and a sexual predator. However, due to our tainted Scotus, he has avoided retribution.
Trumpers compose about half of the voting public in the United States. They have successfully been brainwashed by his lies, propaganda, and disinformation. With Russia’s clandestine assistance, he has decayed Biden’s reputation – a president who saved our country from Trump’s previous mismanagement. Over one million Americans died from Covid, while Trump was telling the public to inject bleach. (Politics, by Meridith McGraw and Sam Stein, 04/23/2021) And “under the Biden-Harris Administration, the United States has had the strongest growth and employment creation of any advanced country, brought inflation back down, and achieved a soft landing, defying many forecasts. . .” (U.S. Department of Treasury, January 14, 2025) If you asked a Trumper, they would tell you that our economy is in shambles and Biden is a crook.
Our country is now facing our own potential holocaust. We have a man about to assume the U.S. leadership role who has told us what to expect – he will eliminate voting, he will imprison over a million people, and he will invade other sovereign nations – for no reason other than it will feed his ego or Putin has instructed him to do this.
Elizabeth Graham "From Democracy to Democrazy"
The noise is indeed unbearable. It is a loud whoosh of raw sewage cresting, then crashing, pouring out of this White House onto our land. Large chunks of Project 2025 interspersed create the stench. This lends strong credence to our community’s correctly characterizing and then naming our foe as psychopathic neo-fascists. We did days of study to determine the correct nomenclature. I think now it is obvious to everyone. They are psychopathic neo-fascists. https://hotbuttons.substack.com/p/my-name-for-them?r=3m1bs