This America Makes Room for MAGA Hats, Proud Boys and Elon Musk’s Salute

An attendee shows their “dark MAGA” hat at the Hispanic Inaugural Ball.
15:14 JST, January 22, 2025
The red MAGA hats were everywhere and seemingly worn by every kind of person. The ecstatic Trump supporters descended on the nation’s capital wearing their signature headgear bearing their movement’s rallying cry: Make America Great Again. They wore those hats as they waved American flags, wrapped themselves in celebratory bedazzled jackets, toasted their electoral victory and huddled in the cold outside the D.C. jail as they awaited the release of inmates whom the newly installed president had pardoned for their actions during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
The hats, now available in a “dark MAGA” black version, once signified something that lived outside the democratic norm. Not so long ago, those baseball caps were jarring instigators of outrage and even fear. They were like visual grenades tossed into a pool of comity. They upset traditional displays of patriotism.
And now what? They’ve been woven into the story of America, their symbolism embedded within the very definition of the country itself – or at least what the country may well become. The hats are no longer a symbol of an outsider’s campaign or a niche curiosity. They represent the popular vote. They are the congressional majority; they are the White House and billionaires and White suburban women. They do not, however, represent a landslide or a mandate – no matter Trump’s insistence to the contrary.
On some wearers, the hats may convey that the only kind of patriotism that matters right now is the kind wrapped up in nationalism. Patriotism is like the love that a parent has for a child; nationalism is akin to believing that one’s child can do no wrong. For a significant swath of America, those hats signify their aspirations and fears, their politics and their religion. Those hats are the banner under which America is evermore comfortably residing. They’re not quite Old Glory, but they nonetheless tell the story of this nation.
The MAGA caps are emblematic of how adaptable this country can be. How forgetful it can be, too. A lot of aggrieved citizens and others with insatiable appetites take cover under those hats, waiting to be welcomed into an increasingly sour, vulgar new normal. Far-right groups roam openly under the banner of MAGA. In the age of dark MAGA, a billionaire’s awkward gesture could quite reasonably be interpreted as something more malign.
Trump supporters wore those hats as they waited to celebrate the release of a cohort of people who broke into the U.S. Capitol, attacked police officers and ran point on an insurrection. Supporters waved American flags and held placards promising to “leave no man behind” as if these men and women had fought in some foreign war rather than in a battle against the truth right here on domestic soil.
The MAGA hat is proof that a solid half of the country is willing to absorb almost anything, any lie, any grievance. And that’s precisely what it’s doing.
Alongside the MAGA hats and the flag-inspired evening gowns and overalls, there were the far-right Proud Boys in their yellow paraphernalia traipsing through the city, just another batch of energized Trump supporters trying to make America … something again. Not quite normal and yet, not quite as shocking as they were when they terrorized the nation’s capital in 2020.
Elon Musk has boasted about his black MAGA cap as if it represented some special kind of nationalistic talisman. And plenty of those black hats dotted the crowds of Trump supporters. On Monday evening, at the inauguration’s makeshift indoor parade, Trump’s most favored billionaire expressed his gratitude to the crowd for returning the former president to the Oval Office. While doing so, Musk awkwardly pressed his right hand to his heart and then thrust his arm into the air with his palm facing downward in a gesture that, for many, called to mind a Nazi salute. And then, he turned around and repeated the gesture to those seated behind him.
Some people argued against a Nazi-friendly interpretation, including the Anti-Defamation League, asking critics to extend “a bit of grace” and give Musk “the benefit of the doubt.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) responded, “Just to be clear, you are defending a Heil Hitler salute that was performed and repeated for emphasis and clarity.”
Some people might be so horrified that their public behavior had been equated with Nazis that they’d rush to clarify their actual intention. Musk responded with a complaint and a sleepy-face emoji: “Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The ‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.” Other people might have the sort of public reputation that would make such an association so inconceivable that even the most suspect behavior would be quickly dismissed as simply misunderstood. But that is not the sort of reputation that follows Musk. He amplifies hateful speech on social media, and yet that has not disqualified him from having a role in Trump’s remaking of America. The country absorbs it all.
How much more can America take in? A red Make America Great Again hat is now a souvenir, a keepsake from a cold day when power was transferred peacefully to someone who has proved his unwillingness to relinquish it. Far-right Proud Boys are just another group at democracy’s party. And thoughtful people are talking about Nazi salutes in the context of a billionaire who is snuggled up next to the president. And then, moving on. America seems ready to absorb it all.
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