New York City, NY – Prominent anti-fascists are ringing the alarm bells that they’ve noticed people making Nazi salutes with ever greater frequency since President Trump’s inauguration.
From Elon Musk:
to prominent conservative commentator and Anglican priest Fr. Calvin Robinson, anyone raising an arm or making any similar motion is under suspicion of being a deep cover secret Nazi.
But the risk is far greater, local antifascist leader (and communist local central committee chairperson) Karla Marx complained on a CNN news show today. “It’s everywhere. They’re everywhere. And what’s most dangerous is that people don’t even realize they’re doing it. And they’ve been doing it for years. I went to one of those patriarchal behind the times Catholic things they call a Mass today, and I saw someone doing it there. I blinked. I blanched. I clenched my teeth as I saw everyone around me shouting in unison along with the person raising their arm in Nazi salute from the pulpet. And then I realized, they’re all doing it. They’ve always been doing it.”
CNN agreed and the host of the show Karla Marx was on discussed how this “proves that all Christians are secretly fascists and Nazis without any deeper analysis attempting to prove the connection.
So is this true? Are there Nazi salutes being made within every lector’s reading of the responsorial psalm?
This is an official IIT fact check brought to you by Grain of Wheat, our sister publication focused on serious reflections about serious topics. Visit today at grainofwheat.substack.com
There is no connection. We at IIT analyzer this situation differently. The situation Karla Marx was concerned about not a Nazi salute but merely a lector reading the responsorial psalm and raising his hand to get the congregation to sing the response.
Here are several examples of what Karla things are dangerous fascists making what she calls dangerous Nazi salutes:
Notice how similar these are to the gestures made by Elon Musk and Calvin Robinson. In fact however, since we see the exact same gesture being made in both cases, and no fascist or Nazi content in the Musk/Robinson cases, we in fact have an alternative hypothesis about the latter two.
Since Musk said as he extended his arm at the inaugural festivities “My heart goes out to you,” and this phrase sounds like a NAB (or maybe The Message) mistranslation of Psalm 61:2, “From the ends of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.”, we suspect that the opposite of what Karla was concerned about was happening.
Musk and Robinson weren’t making Nazi salutes. They were just confused, thought they were reading a responsorial psalm, and were trying to get the people to respond to them by raising their arm to the people.
So, there it is.
Karla is wrong.
Fact Check: FALSE
No People Aren’t Making More Nazi Salutes, They’re Just Confused and Think They’re Reading the Responsorial Psalm.