Brooks: When is a Nazi salute not a Nazi salute? (Hint: Never)

Here’s the thing about Nazi salutes.

If you didn’t mean to make one, you would apologize if someone thought you did.

Say you’re at a right-wing rally and find yourself in the middle of “an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm” — clapping your hand over your heart and then thrusting it stiff-armed over the crowd. Twice.

When people point out that that was exactly how the Nazis saluted, do you recoil in horror? Do you denounce the hate groups who are cheering your little “my heart goes out to you” gesture? Or do you wink and nudge and enjoy the distress and confusion you created?

“The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired,” said Elon Musk, professional rich guy, amateur government bureaucrat and man of a thousand awkward gestures.

Every day since the inauguration feels like stepping out your door to find a troll in a red hat, flipping you the bird.

“Did you just flip me off?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, you did the thing where you turn a little invisible crank as your middle finger slowly extends upward.”

“Accusing people of making rude gestures is such a cheap attack.”

“You just flipped me off again!”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, for one, is tired of America poring over Musk’s straight-arm salute, frame-by-frame like the Zapruder film.

“We spent three days debating, having them trying to debate that President Musk gave a Nazi salute,” Walz said during an interview on MSNBC Tuesday. “Of course he did.”

Musk responded like every troll should — by sliding into someone else’s mentions and stealing their idea.

“I hope Elon sues [Walz] for all he’s worth,” someone on X posted about Minnesota’s famously not-rich governor.

“I think I will,” Musk replied. “Tim Walz is a creepy [clown emoticon]”

It’s Musk vs. Walz vs. the thing we all saw.

And let the record show, throwing ironic Nazi salutes for giggles doesn’t work out so well when you’re not a billionaire.

On Tuesday, the conservative Anglican Catholic Church defrocked a priest who threw a Musk-style straight-armed salute at the conclusion of his remarks at the National Pro-Life Summit in Washington, D.C.

Calvin Robinson had been warned against trolling behavior. When his superiors saw that gesture, they didn’t bother to debate the line between pretending to throw a Nazi salute and actually throwing a Nazi salute.

“The Holocaust was an episode of unspeakable horror, enacted by a regime of evil men,” the College of Bishops of the Anglican Catholic Church said in a statement. “We condemn Nazi ideology and anti-Semitism in all its forms. And we believe that those who mimic the Nazi salute, even as a joke or an attempt to troll their opponents, trivialize the horror of the Holocaust and diminish the sacrifice of those who fought against its perpetrators. Such actions are harmful, divisive, and contrary to the tenets of Christian charity.”