I had to wrestle with myself about whether to post this first, or the next post.
Here’s the headline from The Economic Times:
“Trump’s Raised Fist: What the gesture means which is widely used by fascists, socialists, and communists”
…yeah, and also Rocky, Norma Rae, the much-lionized protesting American runners at the Olympics on the winner’s platform, baseball players after they have hit game-winning home runs, my Vietnam War protesting fellow students at Harvard,
and, oh, just about everyone in the past few centuries or so who wanted to symbolize defiance, victory, strength and resistance to forces that would abuse and persecute them.
The fact that the publication’s editors couldn’t see this absurdly warped analysis as the Trump-Deranged mirage that it is tell me just about all I need to know about that publication.
As with so many events, the reactions of politicians, pundits, journalists and your Trump-Deranged friends to yesterday’s thunderclap will give you all you need to diagnose their character and trustworthiness for future reference.
Trump’s raised fist mere minutes after being wounded in a near miss assassination attempt demonstrated character, courage, resilience, leadership, and quick thinking, because it was the smart move under the circumstances….and it was also as American as apple pie. People who saw anything sinister in it did so because they think everything Trump does is sinister, because the hate him and are completely irrational—so much that they can’t even recognize how their bias makes them look ridiculous.
Ethics Alarms 
Conservatives aren’t allowed to make any kind of gesture or use any memorable phrases. In fact the liberals would prefer they remain completely silent at all times.
I’ve had it up to here with Trump being accused of being a fascist. It’s nothing but projection. Let’s define fascism in the Mussolini model: Unelected experts seize control of the government bureaucracies and enlist the corporate media and corporations themselves to monolithically govern the unwashed masses in an enlightened way.
If that doesn’t sound like what the Biden administration had done, I don’t know what does.
Looking back, I think the raised fists at the Mexico Olympics may have been the most jarring image of my lifetime. Sport has never been the same. Nor have politics. It was a virtually ignored watershed moment. It was the death knell of Martin Luther King’s program and the beginning of the end of the Civil Rights Movement.
Still can’t leave a comment
Wait—this is one of those self-refuting statements, like “I always lie” or “I am not here”….
No it isn’t. I finally resorted to responding by ema
Wait…I’m genuinely confused. Both that comment and this one (well, most of it) came through, not ending up in spam or moderation. What’s not working?
Who would benefit from killing Trump?
In a roundabout way, the Republicans. They’re rid of Trump’s obnoxiousness while they get a martyr to galvanize the Right. I’m not saying officials from either party set this up; US assassins tend to be lone kooks, but in terms of this kook’s motivation I think it’s a possibility.
I have always been uncomfortable with the amount of “fisting” Trump does. The majority of the time it has been used mostly by communists, socialists, fascists, and varieties of leftist movements including Antifa and Black Lives Matter. Even Wikipedia notes this. Norma Rae was a unionist, influenced by Marxist tactics unions often adopt. The Olympians who used it did identify with the Black Power movement that was influenced by socialism. The Vietnam protests were also inspired by political socialism. The baseball players I can’t speak for, but in all but one of your examples, leftist extreme ideology played a role, whether obvious or in the background, regardless of how the fist was intended.
That’s how Marxism works. It blends into or piggybacks onto other well-meaning movements, so you don’t even know you’re sporting symbols of their ideology.
The fact that Trump uses this symbolism continuously should be questioned by anyone paying attention.
But Mrs. Q: doesn’t context matter? Whatever Trump is, Marxism is way, way , way out of the question. I bet he’s watched more baseball games than read pages of the Communist Manifesto. Baseball players who hit game winning home runs raise their fists almost as a tradition now. What’s a guy like Trump most likely to be thinking about? It’s the National Pastime. In an online gambling ad playing repeatedly on the Red Sox channel, Hall of Famer and Red Sox icon David Ortiz sticks his fisted arm in the air when he wins a bet! So far, nobody has accused Big Papi of floating fascist symbolism.
(I don’t like fisting much either, in part because of bad Sixties flashbacks)
Of course, context matters. In 3 out of the 4 examples you gave, the context was that Marxism was indeed in the background! I think you’re being willful about this and perhaps it’s the bit of leftism in your political viewpoint that’s coloring your view. A cursory online search to look at the history of the raised fist (from sources left & right) makes it obvious my point has validity.
Is Trump a Marxist? Probably not, but quite frankly, I don’t know what he is, except for a powerful man whose agenda apparently includes flying cars. But I also know he’s not an idiot and seems to make a study of culture trends and then uses them in pretty interesting ways to make a point, so perhaps that’s what the fist for him is. Regardless, I find it odious no matter who makes the fist. I suppose if the Nazi salute starts to become popular in tennis, baseball, and with Presidents, it’s okay too? Yes, context matters, and so does history.
I’d say Trump may be among the most unlikely candidates for Marxism I can think of. He’s strikingly non-ideological: he’s in the category of leaders who just want to do stuff that works, and whether that happens to fall right or left doesn’t matter. Ideology is just a linear constant to guide one through chaos, and it works as long as you’re not stubborn about it.
I may be almost as unlikely a Marxist as Trump. I confess that I don’t like the fist as a matter of taste: I’m pretty sure that I’ve never used it even once, not even when I was at Game 6 of the 1975 World Series and Carlton Fisk hit the pitch from Reds pitcher Pat Darcy off the Left Field foul pole. I’m partial to the two arms up, hands open or closed for my expression of victory.
I am still adamant that he main use of the single fist is in sports, and that this pretty much cleanses the gesture of sinister resonance on the cognitive dissonance scale. Here, for example, is that well-known Maxist, Braves Hall of Fame third baseman Chipper Jones.
Added to my previous comment: an esteemed commenter whose contribution to this thread was eaten has informed me that the victors at Wimbledon today were raising their fists with gusto.