Journalist Charles Davis expressed shock on Sunday at the lack of media coverage on Gregory Bovino, the Trump administration’s ousted Border Patrol chief, having attended what he described as a “neo-fascist summit” in Europe, and just one day after promoting himself by making a “Hitlerian greeting.”
“Just before he confirmed his attendance at a neo-fascist summit in Portugal, Gregory Bovino, the former U.S. Border Patrol commander who was once the face of President Donald Trump's mass deportations, posted a photo on X showing himself giving a salute familiar to anyone who has heard of Nazi Germany,” Davis wrote in a report published on The Redoubt.
“It would be easier to dismiss this Hitlerian greeting as an awkward gesture were it not selected and shared by a man on his way to a racial-purity conference.”
The “Hitlerian greeting” in question is a photograph of Bovino thrusting his hand into the air with his fingers outstretched, in a manner, Davis argued, nearly identical to the Nazi salute.
Far more concerning, however, was the conference Bovino attended, Davis wrote, which was focused on “remigration,” a “far-right fringe” idea promoting the mass expulsion of ethnic minorities.
The event’s lead organizer appeared to be Afonso Gonçalves, a far-right Portuguese activist who founded the far-right group Reconquista, according to The Redoubt, an organization “named for the mass expulsion of Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula.” During the event, which took place on Saturday, Gonçalves made what Davis characterized as an eyebrow-raising remark.
"Weimar conditions require Weimar solutions," Gonçalves said, a likely reference to the Weimar Republic, Germany’s government during Adolf Hitler’s ascension to power.
Other summit attendees included Martin Sellner, whom Davis accused of “pushing the ‘great replacement’ conspiracy theory – that Jewish elites are seeking to exterminate the white race via mass migration” – and Lena Kotré, founder of what Davis described as a “Swiss neo-Nazi group called ‘Junge Tat.’”
“The mainstream right is crawling into the sewer of neo-Nazi ideology, but you probably wouldn't know it unless you were a right-wing extremist yourself,” Davis wrote.
“Even news outlets that dedicate significant resources to covering the scourge of antisemitism generally ignore it, at least in the United States, when it comes from Republican operatives and retired Trump administration officials.”
