CNN fired commentator Jeffrey Lord for tweeting out a Nazi salute — but the conservative commentator argues the tweet was ironic.
Lord initially tweeted "Sieg Heil!" at Angelo Carusone, president of the left-leaning Media Matters for America. Lord later claimed he was "mocking Nazis and Fascists."
That excuse obviously wasn't enough for CNN. A spokesperson for the company said, "Nazi salutes are indefensible."
But that doesn't stop people on the far-right from using them. Sometimes it's been done seriously by groups like the National Socialist Movement, but others have argued Nazi symbolism was "done in a spirit of irony."
The word "fascism" was used so often during Trump's presidential campaign that it was even named Merriam-Webster's "Word of the Year" for 2015.
The word has been used by both liberals and conservatives to describe the other side — especially when activists claim they are being silenced.
