The secret to defeating Elon Musk's 'fascist peekaboo': columnist
Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte has written about X owner Elon Musk's now-infamous salute that has been cheered on by many prominent neo-Nazis, and she thinks that progressives are getting wiser about how they handle such provocations.
First, Marcotte explains that far-right figures have long played a game of what she describes as "fascist peekaboo" in which they will make a deliberately provocative claim or gesture and then smugly accuse their critics of being paranoid when called out for it.
"There are plenty of other ways the far-right trolls progressives with coded language, only to declare innocence and feign outrage when called out on it," she writes. "It's not just about baiting the left, though. It's a recruitment tactic. Having provoked progressives into yelling at them, authoritarians will appeal to centrists with some form of, 'Don't you hate these paranoid leftists?'"
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In the past, writes Marcotte, some progressives would fall into this trap and get sucked into a debate about whether what Musk did really constituted a Nazi salute, whereas this week many simply called it like they saw it and moved on.
What's more, Marcotte contends that Musk himself has helped his critics tremendously by not denouncing the support he received from open neo-Nazis about his salute.
"Musk, however, saves his ire for anti-racists and seems unworried about neo-Nazis praising him," she writes. "That is behavior inconsistent with an honest mistake."
Marcotte believes that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) best exemplified the proper approach to dealing with Musk when she told off the Anti-Defamation League for trying to downplay the significance of Musk's gesture.
"People can officially stop listening to you as any sort of reputable source of information now," Ocasio-Cortez informed the ADL earlier this week.