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Well, Steve Bannon just threw a Roman salute at CPAC.
I know some people may have reservations in claiming that Elon didn’t mean to do what people thought he did, and many will scream until their hearts give out that he did it emphatically due to some inherent impulse to troll. Bannon doing this (a month no less) after Elon’s own stunt not only means that this was probably in response to that, but also Bannon didn’t even do the same winding motion which was the cover; no, ‘my heart goes out to you’, or, ‘I am reaching out to you’, or any superficial justification, just an unbridled arm stretched out for the purposes of salutation. Accompanying this a proclamation that Trump is a great man of history, no less, someone whose coming is augured only twice in the history of a country, with Bannon proclaiming that only Trump is worthy to be the Republican Party (and therefore President) even in 2028.
The Rubicon seemingly is continually crossed ever-so-slightly, or at least, it is being approached for the purposes of eventually making it to the other side. This comes after the news of the Napoleon quotation posted on the date of Mark Antony offering Ceasar the title of King, and the White House social comms posting Trump as King. Obviously, the former is enigmatic as a function, and the latter humorous. It’s just an interesting start to a new regime seemingly radicalized by its previously downtrodden nature; defeated, the bloodied and uncowed rejects are now reveling in their victory beyond even the limits of their persecutors’ sense of regality.
It’s funny seeing Richard Spencer being a decade early to the seeming new tradition of Trump orbiters, and only if he had bid his time he would potentially have been capable of releasing his true feelings had they not been mellowed in time. Nick Fuentes, on the other hand, is late: stating his sensing of some ulterior goal behind this style of communication being only discomforting. This is basically like the twilight zone at this point in that, although these points don’t seemingly add up to one singular great attractor at the end of whatever this Presidency even is, it’s entailing something completely different.
Ave Trump, Emperor of the Americans.
Ugh. Nazi salute is with hand raised up front and steady. Not a sideways wave.
Its particularly easy to make that move if you're on an elevated platform and wave or otherwise gesture in a way that is directed at some particular person or part of the audience.
If you're waving towards someone on the same height plane as you, the arm will naturally be at a 90 degree angle so its visible to them.
If they're lower than you, then you'd be rotating the arm and palm downward towards them so, again, its more visible to the intended target. That puts you more in the "no no" range, especially if you have the arm fully extended.
All kinds of tricks to avoid it looking like a salute. Don't fully extend the arm, or use only a couple fingers (or the classic 'finger guns.' Although is that too violent?), or hell, use both arms. Most of those make you look more goofy, but that's a tradeoff. But man, isolating one gesture from a speech as evidence is not a great tactic.
And finally, if you ask me, the factor that makes the Roman Salute 'bad' is the part where you usually yell "SEIG HEIL" or "HEIL HITLER" while doing it. At least, that's the part that removes all ambiguity.
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It has to be from the municipality of Nuziders, Austria. Otherwise it's just a sparkling Roman Salute.
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