ON BBC Newsnight the panel of journalists and politicians were discussing Elon Musk’s emphatic salute at Trump’s triumphal inauguration rally in Washington DC.

Probably most people have seen Musk’s Dr Strangelove moment by now but none of the panel would say what it most clearly was: a Nazi salute.

Musk did not just involuntarily raise his right arm and point his fingers to heaven. He slammed his right hand into his chest, paused for a long moment, and then thrust his arm upwards as tens of millions watched nationwide, and thousands of Trump supporters in the auditorium in Washington cheered.

At this point, many people were no doubt watching stunned and wondering if they had just hallucinated Musk’s gesture, but helpfully he then turned his back and did the same salute to those in the posh seats behind him.

And yet somehow Gabriel Gatehouse, a seasoned BBC observer of US politics and the far right, played down the moment, as did the great sword-carrying failed Conservative leadership contender Penny Mordaunt.

Gatehouse suggested it could be a “Roman salute” and compared it to a cartoon frog that appeared in the 2016 presidential campaign.

The new Starmerite MP Alex Ballinger — a former marine and ex-diplomat who appeared alongside them — only had warm words about the Labour government’s relations with Trump. This is despite Musk repeatedly accusing Keir Starmer of extreme crimes such as enabling the “rape of Britain” and calling for his overthrow.

It seems the more Musk makes it clear that he is the self-appointed leader of the global far right who wishes to see the toppling of governments and leaders he doesn’t like, the more centrist politicians bow and scrape for some kind of relations with the world’s richest man and the Trump administration he is part of.

If ever there was proof of the bankruptcy of centrist liberalism in the face of the rise of far-right fascism, this is it.

As one X commentator put it in response to news headlines that left doubt about what Musk had done: “Apart from literally screaming out Zieg [sic] Heil! Musk ‘twice’ and with tremendous enthusiasm, did the Third Reich salute. There’s no ‘appears.’ It’s right there.”

During the rise of Hitler, many Western politicians and businessmen dismissed the idea that the Nazi leader meant what he said, and claimed it was performative and that he was a perfectly reasonable fellow. These views were common among the British ruling elite right up to 1940 and the invasion of France.

Today, it may seem fun to see Musk’s Nazi salute as just a provocation to liberals, as Gatehouse suggests, but for victims of fascist violence and hate, it’s not really a laughing matter.

Millions of migrants in the United States now face being rounded up under a Trump executive order. Many have spent most of their lives in the US, and their children were born there.

As Zara Mohammed of the Muslim Council of Britain put it, many young Muslims are experiencing a “deeply challenging time,” and are choosing to stay away from Musk’s toxic X platform and certain other social media sites. “It’s so hostile. It’s so disgusting I would say, the kind of vitriol we’re seeing.”

Trump’s inauguration comes as far-right parties are expected to win big in Germany in February, for the first time since 1945.

In Britain, Tommy Robinson has called a march of the far right in London on February 1.

October’s neofascist march in London was attended by tens of thousands, rather than the few hundred football thugs that used to go to these events, usually outnumbered by anti-fascist counterprotesters.

Meanwhile a peaceful protest demanding an end to British support for Israel’s genocide faced police kettling and mass arrests.

Musk’s salute was a message to all of the world’s far-right legions: now is our time. We will no longer need to disguise our beliefs about white supremacy and our goal to declare war on global South minorities, especially Muslims, in Western countries.

The gloves are off.

And centrists do not want to see this, as they have largely enabled the far right to get into this position, with years of policies that created greater inequality and poverty in the West, while funding and supporting war in Ukraine and genocide in the Middle East. Musk is the personification of the 40-year failure of neoliberalism, now replaced by billionaire authoritarian rule.

As another user on Musk’s X platform succinctly put it: “When they tell you who they are, believe them.”