Amy Spitalnick of Jewish Council for Public Affairs warns far right will take action as \u2018license for violent extremism\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The head of a prominent US Jewish civil rights body said Elon Musk\u2019s repeated fascist-style salute during Donald Trump\u2019s inauguration could act as a spur for violent extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe salute itself should be enough to warrant condemnation and attention,\u201d said Amy Spitalnick, adding that so should \u201cthe ways extremists see an action like this and take it as license for their own violent extremism\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spitalnick is chief executive of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs<\/a>, a progressive non-profit founded in the 1940s and headquartered in New York City. On Monday, she watched with the rest of the world as Musk, the world\u2019s richest person and a key Trump ally, spoke in Washington at the new president\u2019s inaugural rally \u2013 and gave two fascist-style salutes<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk and his followers have sought to brush off the affair, but to Spitalnick, \u201cthere was nothing ambiguous\u201d about the salutes, no matter how many attempts are made to describe them as \u201cRoman<\/a>\u201d or anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s a long history here,\u201d she said. \u201cThe fact that Nazi salutes are now a regular part of our political discourse is how I got involved with all of this. Before JCPA, I led the non-profit [Integrity First for America] that brought a lawsuit over [the far-right march in 2017 in] Charlottesville and against [the activist] Richard Spencer and a variety of other defendants who are clear neo-Nazi extremists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou know: \u2018Gave the Roman salute\u2019 is just the euphemistic way of saying \u2018Nazi salute\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n To Spitalnick, \u201cmost people today don\u2019t have a full understanding of what the term \u2018fascist\u2019 even means, and so naming it for what it is \u2013 the Nazi salute \u2013 feels important right now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s also important, she says, not to dismiss the fallout as just another online spat, an attempt to distract opponents with outrageous behavior. Not only has Musk expressed support<\/a> for Alternative f\u00fcr Deutschland, a German far-right party widely accused of Nazi-esque views, but he chose to throw out his right arm on day one of an administration that has thrown out executive orders advancing draconian policies on immigration, equality and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk\u2019s salute found a warm welcome on far-right sites \u2013 much as when in November 2023 he endorsed a post on his own platform, X, that said Jewish people promote \u201chatred against whites<\/a>\u201d and support immigration by \u201chordes of minorities\u201d. After condemnation from advertisers and the Biden White House, Musk apologized: saying it \u201cmight be literally the worst and dumbest post I\u2019ve ever done\u201d, he visited<\/a> Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp in Poland, in a show of contrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To Spitalnick, that apology rang hollow: \u201cThere was some engagement with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu [of Israel] and others that was used as attempted cover for not just his own embrace of antisemitism and extremism but the ways in which he\u2019s let it run rampant on X, and given the ways in which it\u2019s normalized, not just on social media but in our politics more broadly, we can\u2019t excuse that. We can\u2019t give it cover in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n This time, Musk has not apologized. On Thursday, he continued a run of joking posts about his behavior at Trump\u2019s parade with a series of Nazi-themed puns, including<\/a>: \u201cSome people will Goebbels anything down!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nor have all pressure groups condemned Musk\u2019s salutes. The Anti-Defamation League, which fights antisemitism and which Musk previously threatened<\/a> to sue, said merely that he \u201cmade an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The JCPA \u201cfundamentally disagrees\u201d, Spitalnick said, \u201cand we work closely with the ADL on a variety of fronts. They do critical work. And in this case, to me, there was no question what the intent, and even more importantly the impact, of this action was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was at a presidential event, and [Musk] is someone who has a presidential appointment, an office in the executive building. He is not a random third party. He is a senior member of the Trump administration<\/a> who gave a Nazi salute from the presidential podium. And there\u2019s no world in which that doesn\u2019t lead to more hate and extremism that will make Jews and so many other communities less safe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk is working for a president who reportedly<\/a> praised and admired<\/a> Hitler; whose own vice-president once called him<\/a> \u201cAmerica\u2019s Hitler\u201d; and whose opponent in last year\u2019s election, Kamala Harris, called<\/a> \u201ca fascist\u201d and an admirer of dictators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Spitalnick acknowledges that after an election featuring a flood of such invective, which Trump won regardless, the public may decide Musk\u2019s apparent fondness for fascist-style salutes is not worthy of serious attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But she has fought the far right before \u2013 and won. The Charlottesville lawsuit was brought by nine plaintiffs who alleged physical harm and emotional distress arising from the Unite the Right rally, a pro-Trump protest in Virginia in August 2017. In November 2021, a jury awarded<\/a> the plaintiffs $24m, later substantially reduced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the second Trump administration, Spitalnick says, the courts will again provide an arena for progressives to fight back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She \u201cworked in the New York attorney general\u2019s office during the first Trump administration, and over and over again, our office and a number of other state AGs won cases against his administration, not just on constitutional grounds and administrative procedural grounds but on a variety of other grounds. The law is the law, and we have to fight like hell to protect the law and protect our justice system and our broader democratic norms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Amid outcry over Musk\u2019s salutes, Spitalnick says, those who oppose the billionaire and his boss<\/a> should remember \u201cthat when people feel like it\u2019s just been a barrage of bad over the last few days, the response is just beginning\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n