Elon Musk recently gave two Nazi salutes during a speech he made celebrating Donald Trump’s inauguration. While some debate whether this was or was not an intentional fascist salute, the context of it occurring between two of Musk’s recent speeches to Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party (Alternatives for Germany, in English), a neofascist German political party with strong ties to the far right and Nazi elements, leaves little doubt of the intentional symbolic nature of the gesture.

Mr. Musk has not expressly denied this intent, instead criticizing those who bring up the subject and making puns and jokes poking at his critics while downplaying the seriousness of the Nazi era.

Germany’s national intelligence service has labeled AfD as “suspected extremist” in 2021, and its youth wing as “extremist” in 2023. Like other far-right parties in western Europe, it is doing well in polling as far-right parties grow in strength around the world, primarily because of the surge in anti-immigrant attitudes.

In 2023 Musk posted on X “You have said the actual truth” in response to a post that claimed Jewish people hold “hatred” of white people.

There is always a beginning phase with changes to legal norms. New laws allowed the Nazis to target people with limited intelligence, communists, Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Roma and Sinti people, homosexuals and “deviants” (as the Nazis called them), and others who opposed the Nazis. It wasn’t long before democratic norms were gone, and Austria, Poland, France and other countries were brought under Nazi rule throughout Europe. Similar conquests occurred throughout Asia.

World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history. An estimated total of 70 to 85 million deaths were caused by the conflict. Much of Russia, Germany, Poland, Japan and parts of China were destroyed. Many cities and towns throughout western Europe were destroyed. London sustained heavy damage from German bombs. Over 400,000 American soldiers died. Nearly 700,000 American soldiers were wounded. Nearly 400,000 United Kingdom soldiers died and a similar number were wounded.

A beginning phase has started here, too. An early step was separating young children from parents at the border, which began in the United States in 2000. From there to targeting trans people, people seeking asylum, having “roundups” of immigrants, attempts to end gay marriage, controlling women’s bodies, and threatening to seize Greenland, the Panama Canal , and making Canada the 51st state have become acceptable.

Ending birthright citizenship, as expressly defined by the U.S. Constitution, firing 17 inspector generals in violation of the law that spells out how to fire them, and impounding funds allocated by Congress, also in violation of law, are illegal acts.

How a person who took an oath of office to support and defend the Constitution of the United States in 2016 and then led a violent insurrection to undo the results of an election he lost in 2020 got to take the same oath after the 2024 election speaks to the failure of our body politic.

This time he didn’t bother with the Bible when he repeated the oath. It’s been said, “Fool us once, shame on you. Fool us twice, shame on us.” But the far greater fools are those in Congress, business and tech elites, and members of the judiciary who allow this to happen. The consequences loom large.

If we don’t wish to allow this to happen, we must organize, vote, donate, write letters, speak to our representatives, and be prepared for any future, sustained general strike. Widespread protests led to the quick end of the separation of children from their parents at the border. Not in our names!

Richard Brunswick is a retired primary care physician in Northampton. His father was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army and the interpreter at the surrender of the Nazi forces Army Group G to U.S. forces at the end of World War II.