What Is This Eerie Salute People Are Doing at Trump Rallies Now?

Audience members put their index finger up while former President Donald Trump speaks at a Save America Rally on September 17, 2022 in Youngstown, Ohio.

Audience members put their index finger up while former President Donald Trump speaks at a Save America Rally on September 17, 2022 in Youngstown, Ohio. (Photo by Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

On Saturday night, as former President Donald Trump was wrapping up a political rally in Youngstown, Ohio, one section of the crowd all raised their arms in the air and extended one finger.

The strange salute came as Trump was once again spreading lies and disinformation about the 2020 election and the FBI search on his Mar-a-Lago home. The signal was immediately compared to the “Sieg Heil” salute used by Nazi party members to greet Hitler. Some also said it was in reference to Trump’s “America First” motto. 

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However, for QAnon followers, the one-finger salute was taken as yet another signal from Trump that he is in their corner. 

Some in the wider QAnon community also claimed the one-finger salute was a reference to the phrase “Where we go one, we go all,” though again with no evidence to back up the claims. 

One offshoot of the cult even claimed credit for starting the salute: “Trump ended his speech with the song “wwg1wga” by Richard Feelgood, which is a blatant Q reference,” Michael Protzman, the QAnon cult leader who predicted that JFK would be resurrected, wrote in his Telegram channel. “During the song, we had a powerful moment where our group held up one finger. A call for unity. Acknowledgement of our one GOD. Wwg1wga. And more. It was magical and completely unplanned as many in the crowd joined us in this gesture. A gesture to say to this beautiful man, ‘We’re with you.’”

Protzman and his group were at the rally, but there’s no evidence that it was they who initiated this salute. Like many incidents, QAnon adherents will quickly claim credit for something happening in the real world after the fact and fit it around their narrative that Trump is waging a secret war to unseat the deep state.

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The song Protzman referenced is one that Trump has played on several occasions, and included in a campaign-style video last month that he posted to Truth Social. However, according to Trump spokesperson Taylor Budowich, the song is “Mirrors,” by Will Van De Crommert.

QAnon supporters believe it’s a song called “WWG1WGA” by an artist named Richard Feelgood. Audio analysis by media watchdog Media Matters For America suggests that the songs are virtually identical.

However, on the pro-Trump forum TheDonald, users were confused about what exactly the one-finger salute signified.

“Why are people holding up an index finger at Trump rally?” one user wrote. Several people responded by saying it was a reference to Trump’s America First policies, while another wrote: “They’re telling President Trump that he’s number one. When they tell Biden they use their middle finger.”

Less than 24 hours after the Trump rally, Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano held a rally during which he called for the crowd to raise their hands in what many compared to a Nazi salute. 

New York State Sen. Anna Kaplan slammed Trump and Mastriano for “urging” their supporters to make these salutes, even though there is no evidence that Trump was involved in getting the crowd to participate. 

“I call on every American to join me in sharply denouncing the use of Nazi symbolism and imagery anywhere in our political process, and I call on these campaigns to immediately end the use of this shocking salute in their rallies,” Kaplan said in a statement posted on her website.

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