Elon Musk, the Tesla owner, showed up on Monday, at Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in a strange cap.
The official “Make America Great Again” or “MAGA” cap is red in colour with the text in white. However the one Musk wore was black in colour with the text embroidered in an irregular font usually associated with heavy-metal bands and newspapers.
“I’m dark gothic MAGA,” Musk said.
The internet, however, has read it differently. The font on Musk’s cap looks suspiciously similar to the ones used for Nazi typography or “blackletter”.
The font on Musk’s cap looks suspiciously similar to the ones used for Nazi typography or “blackletter” (Image posted on X by @elonmusk
According to a report by FastCompany Magazine, Cheryl Jacobsen, an adjunct professor of lettering at the University of Iowa, said that blackletter was used in Germany as a folk style for the Bible. Regardless, during the rise of Adolf Hitler, the Nazi party re-adopted the font as a sign of its nationalism. It also features on the cover of Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf.
The font, now a relic of the past, fell into disuse after the Nazis abandoned it due to unfounded rumours of its Jewish origins.
Internet sleuths have much to say about the matter. A user on X said, “Elon posted his MAGA hat which uses the Fraktur font, popular in nazi Germany. He wore this at a rally meant to evoke the 1939 nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. He’s telling you who he is.” While another commented, “Stretching on this one. It’s literally the Old English font. You can’t cross reference the serifs.”
According to the NYT, John Kelly, former President Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, made a striking statement, asserting that Donald Trump embodies the definition of a fascist. He said, “Certainly the former president is in the far-right area, he’s certainly an authoritarian, admires people who are dictators – he has said that. So he certainly falls into the general definition of fascist, for sure.”
Having said that, MAGA chief, Trump, said on Monday, “The newest line from Kamala and her campaign is that everyone who isn’t voting for her is a Nazi,” he told the crowd. “I’m not a Nazi. I’m the opposite of a Nazi.”