Let Us Bear Witness to the Truth

Elon Musk showed us who he is on Trump's inauguration day; don't let others gaslight you into thinking otherwise. Plus, the latest on the DNC chair race.

Just a few days after New Year’s, Anand Giridharadas wrote a perceptive piece asking what posture we should adopt toward the second Trump presidency. “How much of your life can you spend yelling in opposition to something?” he asked. “It occurs to me from time to time that I do not wish to spend the better part of my adult life in a posture of opposition to a vulgar demagogue. I wish to be and live about other, richer, bigger things.”

This is highly understandable!

He offered some alternatives—to retreat into private life or deeper into one’s creative work. Or to focus more on local civic life, where one can have greater influence. Or to “spend the next many years building the pro-democracy movements and civic organizations and political parties that, had we already them, would have prevented this mess.”

I respect all these choices; we each do what we can when we can. Professionally, I am most interested in the last of Giridharadas’ options, the effort to build something better. But I want to add one more option to the list, which I believe is also needed. We need to spend the next four years bearing witness to the truth. We need to keep our bearings and remember what is factual, especially when so much of what Trumpism thrives on is the blurring of reality and fiction. I’m not going to try to do this comprehensively—that would be impossible. But it's our collective job.

Number ten on historian Timothy Snyder’s “Twenty Lessons on Tyranny” is to “Believe in Truth.” He writes:

“To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.”

Yesterday, Trump’s inauguration, was an ugly day to watch. But almost none of it was a surprise or shocking. Trump is doing exactly what he promised to do; whether he gets away with all the executive pronouncements he made remains to be seen. There will be many tests ahead.

But there was one moment that wasn’t in the day’s script that is worth remembering, not only for what it showed about the person who acted it out, but also for what it revealed about many others. That was when Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, twice flashed a Nazi salute while thanking a pro-Trump crowd at a post-inaugural rally at the Capitol One Arena in Washington, DC.

“A gaffe is when a politician tells the truth,”political columnist Michael Kinsley said back in 1984. “Or, more subtly,” he wrote more recently, “a gaffe occurs when a politician or someone in the political world departs from the script and accidentally says what’s really on his or her mind.”

Musk’s gesture was a classic Kinsley gaffe. It showed us who he is, even more than his recent endorsement of Germany’s far-right “Alternative for Germany” party, his stated belief in “replacement theory” or his re-platforming of many antisemitic accounts on X.

But this isn’t all we should remember. Musk’s Nazi salute was condemned roundly by historians of fascism like Claire Aubin, Ruth Ben-Ghiat and Kurt Braddock. Efraim Zuroff, the retired head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Jerusalem office and formerly the organization’s top Nazi hunter, told the Associated Press that he also saw it as Nazi salute, and that it was especially shocking to see it at a U.S. presidential inauguration celebration. Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) posted on Bluesky, “I’m the son of Jewish refugees that fled the Nazis. I know exactly what I’m looking at.”

But the Anti-Defamation League, which insists that it is the world’s leading organization fighting antisemitism, declared that:

“This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety. It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge. In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.”

Musk’s Nazi salute, as seen in the wild.

Who Are You Going to Believe? The ADL, or Your Lying Eyes?

The ADL has never applied the label of “antisemite” evenhandedly, but under the stewardship of Jonathan Greenblatt it has completely caved to a morally vacant political calculus. If someone is “pro-Israel,” they get the benefit of the doubt or declarations of grace. If they, on the other hand, use phrases like “Free Palestine” or “From the river to the sea,” they are deemed anti-Israel, antisemitic and in favor of genocide—no matter the context of those statements.

Abe Foxman, who led the ADL for many years before handing the reins to Greenblatt, was unequivocal in his response to Musk. Last night he tweeted:

“Elon Musk may be the world’s richest man but that does not excuse his thanking the Trump supporters with a Heil Hitler Nazi salute. [In] addition to supporting Germany’s neo-Nazi party in the next elections it is a very disconcerting image.”

It's worth remembering also how much Musk personally has at stake in Trump’s election. After firing off his salute, he told the cheering crowd that this election was a turning point in assuring “the future of civilization,” claiming that Trump would bring America “safe cities, secure borders, sensible spending—basic stuff.” And then he plumped for his vision of Mars colonization, which no one thinks is humanly possible. But what he didn’t mention are the nine federal investigations into his businesses that Trump is likely to end, including one lawsuit filed by the SEC just days ago charging Musk with violating securities laws for failing to disclose that he was buying a large stake in Twitter, costing other investors dearly.

Also, Remember This

—Trump only won the election by 1.5% of the vote. There was no landslide. He has no massive popular mandate.

—Sociologist Dana Fisher was out with her graduate students surveying participants in Saturday’s People’s March against Trump, which had a decent turnout despite the bad weather. She reports that many did not have prior experience with the first Trump “resistance.” Most were female, highly educated, white and middle aged – though less female and more white than in 2017. And compared to 2017, attendees at the People’s March were much more motivated by issues like climate change and LGBTQ+ rights than 8 years ago. Most concerning, more than 30% said that violence may be necessary to protect democracy in America, a sizable increase from past surveys. There were lots of Luigi signs, too,” Fisher told Amy Westervelt.

Tracking the DNC Chair Race

—Ben Wikler, one of the two leading candidates for party chair, announced last week that he has won the endorsement of the four largest public sector unions—AFSCME, AFT, NEA and SEIU. This may bring him a fair number of DNC votes; by my count at least 8 committee members are connected to one of these unions: Lee Saunders, national president of AFSCME; Sonja Whitten, vice-president of its Nevada affiliate; Randi Weingarten, national president of the AFT; Karla Hernández-Mats, president of the AFT affiliate in Florida; Melissa Cropper, president of the AFT affiliate in Ohio; Becky Pringle, national president of the NEA; April Verrett, national president of the SEIU; and Greg Kelley, president of its Illinois affiliate.

—Ken Martin, the other leading candidate who is the likely front-runner, has announced the support of Roxanne Brown, International vice-president at large of the Steelworkers union., and the Washington Post reports the UFCW has endorsed him as well. (Its president, Anthony Perrone, is a DNC at-large member.) Martin is claiming the support of 200 DNC members—the winner needs at least 225—but both Wikler and Martin O’Malley, the former governor of Maryland, are pushing back on that claim. So far, Martin has shared the names of 51 state party chairs and vice chairs who he says are backing him.

—Here’s a fascinating post breaking down the hundreds of millions of dollars that flowed in and out of the Democratic National Committee last year. Charlotte Swasey, its author, notes that at a practical level, the DNC seems to exist mainly to move money around to states and committees, with a sideline in direct mail, texts and other media. And yet, as she notes, the DNC chair race has revealed very little about how the various candidates think about specific DNC expenditures. Wikler has said that “a full audit of DNC consulting contracts will begin on Day One if I’m chair.” Martin has said, “When I’m DNC Chair, I’m not going to give lucrative contracts to rich DC consultants who aren’t innovating with new strategies to reach, communicate with, and win over voters.”

—David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, profiles Faiz Shakir, a late entrant to the DNC chair contest. Shakir, who was made an at-large member of the DNC after his boss Bernie Sanders folded his 2020 campaign, tells that under chair Jaime Harrison, DNC members were given nothing to do. “The way I was asked to participate, they said, ‘Pick two councils to be on,’” Shakir said. “I think I checked rural and labor. You get added to this roster, you go the DNC meeting. I said, ‘Where’s the discourse about the strategy to win? Are there polling presentations? Do we discuss in group settings?’” But as Shakir explained, the councils were mainly social gatherings, a place to hear speeches and rally and chat. Dayen notes that Shakir’s effect on the race for DNC chair may be to peel votes away from Wikler, thus helping Martin win the post.

—No comment: “There are a lot of good billionaires out there that have been with Democrats who share our values and we will take their money. But we’re not taking money from those bad billionaires.” DNC chair candidate Ken Martin, at Politico’s candidate forum last week.

End Times

—This inauguration fashion commentary by Australian writer Daniela Elser on the bra boldly worn by Lauren Sanchez, Jeff Bezos’ fiancé, must not be missed, if for nothing more than the screencap of tech titan Mark Zuckerberg, who was accompanied to the inauguration by his spouse Priscilla Chan, ogling Sanchez’s ample bosom during the ceremony. Actually, the accompanying video montage of the inauguration’s “wildest moments,” including Hillary Clinton laughing at Trump’s plan to rename the Gulf of Mexico and Bernie Sanders’ reprise of his 2020 pose at Biden’s ceremony are worth catching as well.