While I seem to be in a phase of commenting on US politics - it's sure hard to look away - I may as well raise the issue of that raised fist that has become de rigeur in Republican circles these days.
Trump has used it for many years now - including, rather incongruously, on a Merry Christmas photo - but now members of his family, fellow delegates and other attendees at the Republican National Convention have taken it up. It has become suspiciously similar to the ubiquitous Nazi salute in the 1930s and 1940s (although Trump at least had the sense not to use the same salute). You definitely mark yourself as being a Trump acolyte by using it.
The clenched fist image is not new, of course, and it certainly doesn't belong to Trump or the Republicans in any way. Indeed, it has been used since the early 20th Century by fascists, socialists, Black Power advocates, Black Lives Matter, the Occupy movement, even some sports personalities. In general terms, it usually denotes solidarity and defiance, so it seems strange seeing it used by besuited conservatives and suburban housewives. But I can see that they just want to be seen to belong to whatever it is Trump has going (let's not glorify it with the label "movement").
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