There has been an unfortunate uptick in public displays of the Roman salute, among men specifically.
But the fact of the matter is that young, online men have been at this for a while: Their veiled and unveiled interest in Hitler has not likely decreased but has not likely increased. It is more obvious but not more dangerous.
As such, the breadth of the matter is not the problem now. The push and pull between the Left and the Right is what keeps the joke alive and provocative.
If Roman salutes are becoming more common, overt Nazism, thankfully, is not — at least on the Right. The gesture is an older military salute on which the Nazis, and other fascist regimes, modeled their own. Our present phenomenon makes conservatives look plain amoral, but more than anything else, it reveals a political balancing act.
Barring Elon Musk‘s foray into the controversy, the men whom…
