When several conferencegoers in the nation’s capital flash unmistakable Nazi-style salutes, people just might get offended.
That was one lesson from this weekend’s National Policy Institute annual conference, held at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center.
On Saturday night, NPI president Richard Spencer, the man who popularized the term “alt-right” to describe white nationalists, gave a toast with the word “hail” repeated several times.
Half a dozen attendees heard that as “heil!” instead and flashed unmistakable Nazi salutes, thus igniting a media firestorm.
Because one of the subjects hailed was President-elect Donald Trump, a Trump spokesman was obliged to deny any neo-Nazi affiliations for the budding administration.
“President-elect Trump has continued to denounce racism of any kind and he was elected because he will be a leader for every American. To think otherwise is a complete misrepresentation of the movement that united Americans from all backgrounds,” Trump transition team spokesman Bryan Lanza told CNN in a statement.
Trump transition statement on alt right conference where neo nazis and white nationalists were praising Trump’s election pic.twitter.com/XZCxVSS6Jt
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 21, 2016
Spencer for his part tried to dismiss the controversy as so much nothing. He said in a message to PBS Newshour that the Nazi-style salutes that greeted his speech were “clearly done in a spirit of irony and exuberance.”
Richard Spencer just texted me that the Nazi salutes at his Sat speech were “clearly done in a spirit of irony and exuberance.”
— P.J. Tobia (@PJTobia) November 21, 2016
Nicole Hemmer, a historian of conservatism in America who has taken a special interest in Spencer’s alt-right, said not so fast.
“There is no definition of irony – not even Alanis’s – that works in this context. ‘Exuberance’ is spot on, though,” she argued on Twitter.
The DC restaurant Maggiono’s Little Italy also found itself snared by Salutegate. It posted an apology on Facebook Monday for hosting the group for dinner when photos surfaced of a few attendees posing in the restaurant and again flashing Nazi salutes.
The restaurant explained that it did not know the nature of the group it was hosting as reservations had come in at the last minute and under another name.
