I often e-mail media spokespeople from sports leagues, political offices, and corporations seeking official comment, and usually their responses are about as spicy as warm milk. That’s what made this e-mail from Milwaukee’s CBS58’s Molly Kelly so odd. I was contacting the local news station about the firing of meteorologist Sam Kuffel. For those who haven’t heard, the popular Kuffel was abruptly dismissed after commenting on Elon Musk’s Nazi salute at the inauguration day of Donald Trump. Kuffel wrote on her private Instagram page of Musk, “Dude Nazi saluted TWICE during the inauguration. You fuck with this and this man, then I don’t fuck with you.” She added an anti-Nazi meme from the reliably funny It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

This would have gone unnoticed if a right-wing radio sewer dweller, who won’t be getting free publicity in this piece, hadn’t thrown a fit calling her “vulgar” (always remarkable when this collection of rape apologists reaches for the fainting couch) and said that Kuffel was “spreading a lie” that this was a Nazi salute. This sure doesn’t look like a lie after Musk addressed German’s Alternative for Germany (AFD) party political convention over the weekend. To raucous cheers, Musk urged the far-right party to “move on” from the “guilt” of the Holocaust. Outside, tens of thousands protested the German party whose leaders keep using banned Nazi slogans.

CBS58 fired Kuffel without hesitation, even though—in keeping with her job—all she did was open a window, stick her hand out, and tell us it was raining. Here we get back to station spokesperson Molly Kelly. Kelly, upon my query about why Kuffel was fired, responded, “We can confirm that Sam Kuffel is no longer with the station. However, we cannot comment further on personnel issues. You can refer to me as a spokesperson from the company but please do not use my name.”

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I then received a follow up e-mail insisting that I not use her name. In 20 years of doing this work, I have never had a spokesperson, speaking on the record and giving a typically drowsy answer, ask that their name not be used. For non-journalists, the rules are Journalism 101. Not using names is something that needs to be agreed upon in advance, not after the fact. As a communications professional—and especially as an official spokesperson—Kelly should have known that. It was an outlandish request and can only be interpreted as an act of shame or fear.

The people at CBS58 aren’t publicly voicing their solidarity with Kuffel. They have their heads down and, as we can see, don’t even want their names associated with anodyne statements. Their bosses at the multibillion-dollar media conglomerate Weigel Broadcasting having dropped the axe, the head has fallen in their laps to deal with, and they seem to just want it to go away. But that didn’t happen, and they are now all part of a national story stating that Nazi salutes are free speech but critiquing them even privately could cost you your job.

It’s a big deal, and the people in Milwaukee are not letting it stand. The station has been inundated with phone calls and e-mails. A request by the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel for reader opinions about the firing produced a deluge of support for Kuffel. It turns out that Nazi multibillionaire fascists who make Holocaust jokes on social media are less popular than those who stand up to them. The dismissal even made Stephen Colbert’s monologue where he said, “In Wisconsin, a local meteorologist denounced Musk on social media writing, “Dude Nazi saluted twice. TWICE. During the inauguration” and was then fired from her job. That is terrible, but to be fair, a meteorologist is never supposed to be that accurate.”

Kuffel’s firing also has roused a city still reeling, like many, from the onslaught of last week’s reactionary and ugly executive orders. Pastor Greg Lewis, the president of Milwaukee’s Souls to the Polls, messaged me, “CBS 58 has caved to right-wing talk radio and the MAGA mob. There’s a demonic straight line from Trump’s good people on both sides to the January 6 insurrection to pardoning leaders of the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to the CBS 58 firing of their meteorologist. Trump and his allies have mobilized and legitimized racists and bigotry in their pursuit of an extremist agenda.”

In addition, longtime Jewish activist Frank Shansky criticized certain members of the Jewish community for their refusal to call out a dangerous, violently antisemitic gesture. The Anti-Defamation League, an ostensibly “pro-Jewish” organization that’s cozy with Trumpism, forgave Musk immediately. “It appears that the ADL and ‘leaders’ of the Milwaukee Jewish community feel free to wrongly call Palestinian students antisemitic for protesting Israeli policy in Gaza, but when a man of power proudly makes a Nazi salute, that apparently isn’t antisemitic. We’re in an era where courage to speak truth to power is getting harder and harder.”

Kuffel, unlike her colleagues, has not been silent. In her first statement since the incident, she explained that she “never meant to harm anyone—certainly not my former employer and colleagues. I am still processing all of this and weighing my options. But again, I’m deeply appreciative to all who have supported me through this.”

Support is certainly coming from corners Kuffel probably did not expect. The Minocqua Beer Super PAC (that’s apparently a thing) is set to put up a billboard across the street of CBS58 with an image of Musk’s Nazi salute and the words, “Stand with Sam Kuffel. Boycott CBS 58. Don’t obey in advance.”

In addition, a petition is off the ground aimed at getting Kuffel’s job reinstated. The now-retired Milwaukee union leader Michael Rosen said to me, “None of this is surprising since Wisconsin is the home of Joe McCarthy, who was mentored in the art of dirty politics and witch hunts by Donald Trump’s mentor Roy Cohn. Sam Kuffel is just roadkill to the MAGA crowd. But to those of us who are committed to justice and equality, it should be nothing short of a call to action.”

I hope I’m wrong, but I do not think Sam Kuffel will get her job back. Her importance as a warning to others in Weigel’s media empire and beyond is probably worth more to them than any short-term blowback, even if it guts the credibility and viewership of CBS58. But this story actually provides a window into our best hope for building a movement against Trumpist fascism. Led by Trump’s hyper-caffeinated, spoiled lizard brain and his bratty sons, the far right wants to crush any vestige of democracy with a thousand cuts: spewing executive orders of dubious legality at us until we don’t know which way to turn or where to aim our ire. But doing this also overextends any kind of popular support or mandate they think they have after Trump received less than half the popular vote. Corporate America, the media, and much of the Democratic Party (unanimous vote for Marco Rubio in the Senate?!) might be in a state of premature surrender, but among many people, this administration is already, in football terms, outkicking their coverage.

Thank you, Sam Kuffel, for showing some spine. But, to paraphrase Bob Dylan, you don’t need to be a meteorologist to know which way the wind is blowing. As for Musk, he and his Nazi salutes need to be driven from public life. If Musk was just being “ironic,” he can explain that at Nuremberg.