Musk:
-supposedly has autism
-autistic people sometimes make weird faux paus
To me, it looks like it’s clearly a Hitler salute and the logical conclusion is he’s a white supremacist. But I am just wondering if everyone else sees this that way with no room for it being a result of autism and definitely that.
Is there any possibility it could have been accidental? Or was he doing a Hitler salute, then “oh it was an accident” (wink) sort of thing? Did he apologize?
Lots of people on lemmy are really smart so I’m interested to read what people think.
The whole thing makes me really uncomfortable with buying from companies that have x profiles. I just don’t see how that coukd be accidental and it seems like no one cares.
There was this period before WWII when stuff started happening to reduce the rights of minorities, but they weren’t being killed blatantly. Is this where we are? I feel more scared to be in America now.
Yea sure - but it doesn’t matter. It could have mattered but his reaction to the reaction means it doesn’t.
If you accidentally do a nazi salute and then someone says “Hey bro, you really shouldn’t do a nazi salute” and another dude says “Hey bro, white power! I’m glad you’re on our side” and your immediate reaction isn’t “Oh fuck guys, I didn’t know that was a nazi salute, I fucking hate nazis” then, well, you did a nazi salute.
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Elon did a thing.
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People said “That’s a nazi thing”.
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Elon didn’t immediately say “No, I didn’t do the nazi thing.”
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∴ Elon is a nazi.
It’s also not like the fucker doesn’t have the ability to issue a statement correcting the public perception. He literally owns fucking X and the media salivate over his press releases.
If you accidentally do a nazi salute and then someone says “Hey bro, you really shouldn’t do a nazi salute”
I like to think about how a person like that would react if they accidentally “acted gay”. Can you imagine how much they would trip over themselves trying to make sure people knew it was a mistake?
If you don’t have that level of response to being called a Nazi, you’re probably a Nazi.
Point of order. He didn’t do a Nazi salute. He did two, within five seconds, on national television, at the inauguration.
You would think the crowd of people would have stepped in at that point but clearly they’re all in as well.
And if they work that hard to make sure everyone knows they’re not gay, then bonus! You also found out that they’re homophobic.
No, I don’t agree with this at all.
I grew up in the 90s when being gay was “bad” (societys words, not mine). I live in Cleveland, but a suburb of Cleveland is Lakewood. San Fransisco is Americas gayest city. Lakewood is (was?) Americas second gayest city (at least in the 90s it was).
I lived right on the Lakewood border. About 7 streets away. And just to give an idea of how anti-gay the 90s were, I can remember a guy getting handcuffed to a chain link fence, and beaten by 4 men with bats. Beaten to literal death. With his dead body lay prone and still handcuffed from 2:30am until 7am on a busy street until a mother called the police as she walked her 5 year old to school (this was 2 blocks from an elementary school)
That’s the environment I grew up in. People CONSTANTLY accused me of being gay. I’m not. I never have been gay. But I grew up being taught you better make sure you deny it. If nothing else, so people don’t beat you.
Now I realize, we no longer live in that social environment. But I also assume Jews in Europe in the 1960s still would downplay the fact they were Jewish. Sure, the nazis weren’t a thing anymore, but if you’d seen the holocaust you wouldn’t take chances either.
Plus, being a teenager in the 90s, I thought “If the girls think I’m gay, I’ll never get laid…” which was true. They still thought I was gay, and I didn’t get to date until after high school.
And thats how I stay today. I have enough of an uphill battle to dating. I don’t need women disqualifying me for something that isn’t true.
Now if YOU wanna be gay, go ahead. I always think if more guys are gay, that makes things easier for me.
Based on your persuasive arguments, ive decided to be gay.
That’s so gay
Good choice. We have the best sex.
I’m not saying that just because someone says you’re gay, you can’t correct them without being homophobic. I’m saying that the people that people that go out of their way to make sure everyone knows they’re not gay, who get offended at the idea of being mistaken for gay are acting homophobic.
I grew up in approximately the same era as you in a very conservative area, and yeah, there was a lot of homophobic behavior and slurs. But if someone asked if I was gay in this day and age, I think anything more than a quick correction is over-reacting.
But hey, that’s just my opinion; you’re welcome to yours. Have a good day friend!
This is the weirdest homophobic and also misogynistic take I’ve read. You took “I’ve got nothing against the gays, but…” to a new deranged level.
He’s like only part way there. I grew up in the 90s too when being gay was “bad”. In my younger years I would have absolutely said I’m not homophobic but would have made damn sure no one thought I was gay. Spoiler alert. It was homophobic even if I didn’t realize it. However in my older years I recognize that for what it was.
Great comparison.
First time in years I’ve seen the ‘therefor’ three dots!
∴ - copying to notes as I don’t think it’s available on Android keyboards.
I didn’t even know it existed in the first place. I’m going to show my grandfather and see if he’s seen it before. I expect he has since he’s a retired english/history teacher
edit: he has seen it before, but he couldn’t remember what it meant.
I remember it from ‘introductory formal logic’ back in my (failed) uni days.
It kinda had a language of its own, similar to how mathematics has < > etc
Unexpected Keyboard (URL from memory;
unsure ifit works) has ∴ (and a lot more, like ¬∵∧∨ etc.) if you’re fine with the learning curve.I always just search the web for “<symbol> unicode” when I need something obscure. Then again I’m old ;_;
I’m British and I tried to plug something into it.
Don’t you know? Plugs go in the rear.
It’s crazy to me that people are denying it.
<inAnAlternateReality>
Elon did a thing.
People said “That’s a nazi thing”.
Elon immediately said “No, I didn’t do the nazi thing.”
People said “we don’t believe you”.
∴ Elon is a nazi.
Elon didn’t immediately say “No, I didn’t do the nazi thing.”
He did though: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1881746484229763524. My hypothesis: he practiced this and realized what reaction it would cause, and did it simply to hype himself up. The whole inauguration event in people minds is now associated with Elon doing “sieg heil” while being high on ketamine.
I’m not seeing him saying it. He did a “what about” and then blamed the media.
Also those are static images he’s showing. A video of those images would show very different hand motions.
I also couldn’t find him directly denying it, and you’re correct those examples in referenced image are no good - in the comments there are video versions of those showing none of them looking anywhere similar to what he did. There are other videos of Macron and Camala doing some gesture, but they are fetching their hand far up in front of them in more of a waving to audience way, so it doesn’t look like nazi salute.
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35 yo autistic person here:
I tend to ramble on and on when I am somewhat nervous, or excited and genuinely interested in someone or something, i’ll include too much detail that does eventually wrap around to connect to all the points I am trying to make, or story I’m trying to tell, but it can be laborious for a listener to make sense of.
I will often interperet things people say so literally that I miss or forget the context that the conversation is taking place in which gives a word or phrase a specific meaning, and have to ask for clarification.
Saying goodbye and ending a conversation is always either too long and drawn out, or abrupt and curt to the point of often being interpreted as rude, even though I don’t mean to be rude.
…
I do not have a tendency to do a goddamned nazi salute unintentionally.
Thats uh, a pretty unambiguous, obvious social ettiquette rule, pretty binary, pretty cut and dry.
Also, if you did, you would likely be mortified and doing everything in your power to make sure nobody mistakenly takes you for a Nazi.
Because, you know, you’re not a goddamn fucking Nazi.
Yep.
No. And here’s why:
ELON MUSK HAS NOT DENIED THAT HE MADE A NAZI SALUTE!
The closest he has come to a denial, so far as I can find over 48 hours after he made the gesture, is a deflective tweet mocking the people who recognized the link to Nazis as being uncreative.
This means one of two things: a. He doesn’t care that it is being construed as a Nazi salute. OR
b. He wants it to be construed as a Nazi salute.These two options very much amount to the same thing.
We will never know what exactly was going through his mind at the moment he made the motion. Regardless, even if Musk had somehow not initially intended the gesture to be a Nazi salute, he has transformed it into one by promoting that interpretation.
at first I thought it was supposed to be a normal hand over heart then doing a salute immediately after, but to do it TWICE then NOT apologize when people say it’s a Nazi salute means it is 100% a Nazi salute.
It doesn’t matter.
It REALLY doesn’t matter.
If he was doing a Nazi salute, the consequences are obvious. If he was doing something “like” a Nazi salute but can plausibly deny it, the result is exactly the same; and that means that the intent is the same, even if it is proven (magically!) that it wasn’t a Nazi salute.
This is the result:
The Nazis of the world all saw it, and took it as a sign of unity. Nothing else matters.
Now Musk may or not may be autistic, but I know several autistic people (plus one with Tourette Syndrome, long ago) and you know what? Not a single one of them has done anything like a Nazi salute.
“Heil Hitler” as a phrase and a salute is fairly unique: It is something that is absolutely burned into the memory of most of humanity, regardless of language, culture, or society. Nobody with Musk’s worldly knowledge and experience would accidentally do something that close to a Nazi salute. Hell, an eight year old from Latvia wouldn’t accidentally do something like that. The knowledge and the taboo are absolutely burned into our collective consciousness.
There is absolutely zero chance whatsoever that Musk didn’t know what he was doing.
And even if that’s true, it honestly doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t matter.
It REALLY doesn’t matter.
Best way I saw it expressed: If you did something that was NOT a nazi salute, but other people perceived it as a nazi salute, you would IMMEDIATELY apologise and walk it back. Given that Muskolini has not done that, he did indeed do a nazi salute.
First time I’ve seen “Muskolini.” It’s so obvious, but I never would have thought of it myself.
Musk isn’t someone who failed elementary school, he is the richest man on the world and the US secretary for government efficiency. He definitely knows what’s a Nazi salute, and what isn’t.
We’re not in the context of a movie, a theatre play, a larp, or even a costume party where it would have been from OK to “stupid” but in the context of a political speech.
So it’s definitely a nazi salute.
Nah, as an autistic person who works with many autistic people (I am a support worker), no. Autistic people are able to miss things, mistake social cues, and so on, but blaming autism for a Nazi salute is absolutely bullshit. Not to mention that he has done tonnes of other stuff which is in line with a Nazi salute and this is just the last in a long line of behaviours, and his family history etc, yeah, not autism, just Nazi shit.
If he did it once, it would have been an extremely low but still non-zero chance that it wasn’t a Nazi salute.
He did it twice though, it’s now firmly a 0% chance of any kind of coincidence, misunderstanding, etc.
Thus far he’s made no comment, not even to deny the Nazi intent.
No apology, no backtrack, no denial, he did it twice.
It was exactly what it appeared to be and nothing less.Thw twice in a row is meaninfful because that’s how the Nazi’s do it?
If it’s twice, it’s not a random twitch or awkward wave. He sieg heiled the front and the back
Because it clearly was an intentional gesture.
i think he allowed himself to do it as part of his edgelord persona, trying to trigger people on purpose. the motion is intentional as his arm shoots straight out to the side as opposed to being directed to the center of the crowd or sweeping across the crowd as if to spread his “heart” as it were.
the autism defense is one that i think is being used to try to checkmate the left on the subject, as they are the most offended by the gesture but also more likely to be sensitive to neurodivergent persons and potentially less likely to criticize their actions.
in short, i believe he intended the gesture as interpreted, just not as a genuine expression of his personal beliefs. that being said, i think hes a white supremacist fascist, but i dont think he thinks hes a white supremacist fascist.
I absolutely think you’ve hit the nail on the head in terms of his personal reasoning for it and the way the left is being manipulated as always. The terrifying part isn’t even the act itself but the lack of an appropriate response from the public and media, and all the blatant gaslighting that ensued. Ultimately he doesn’t need to believe he is a Nazi to make all the self-aware ones feel empowered and validated regardless. He was trying to prove a point and he did.
the scariest implication of this whole business is the most favorable interpretation of the nonplussed reaction of the majority is that they are in such denial that a nazi government could be possible again in a first world country that they cant see it for what it is. that is to say, the exact things the people who lived through it had been vigilant to remind us about ever since.
i definitely agree that it empowers legitimate nazis, which i suppose could be his way of cultivating a voter base which no other candidate would openly support but would vote for whoever he throws his money behind as trump will no longer be a valid candidate. a best case scenario here would be that this kind of attention is too much even for trump to tolerate and will cut ties with him. i feel that would be likely to happen regardless, as they are two narcissists of the highest order, but it would be better if it happens sooner.
Musk is a distraction from everything orange clown is doing it wants to do.
This sums it up for me
If it was an accident, he’d probably have apologized by now. But it really doesn’t matter either way. It’s too late now, he’s given license to the far right to see it as the endorsement they want.
Yeah, if any normal person did a nazi salute by accident, they’d be all over the news refuting it. If he isn’t, then it seems to default to being a nazi salute.
Have you actually watched it? It was clearly a fascists/nazi salute. People who say otherwise simply don’t want to admit it.
This. It’s the new litmus test for Nazi apologists.
I did watch it and it scared me. No companies are cancelling twitter accounts, no one is crushing their Teslas into a cube, everyone just seems apathetic (except AOC)
I thought it looked kind of like he was flailing like an idiot. If it was a nazi salute (which is definitely possible) then it was a poorly done one (which tracks for him).
I don’t think so. My case:
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Just at the level of fuckin eyeballing it, the comparisons to how Hitler did it to how Musk did it are pretty damning.
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I asked Germans on Lemmy if Musk would’ve gotten fined if he was anyone else and had done this at an event in Germany, the answer was a confident yes. I expect Germans know it when they see it, and know how not to fall foul of the law, so that’s another good test that says Musk knew what he was doing.
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Last and most damning is when you consider the context of the man himself. Musk has been directly sponsoring and promoting not just right wing but reactionary parties like AfD, MAGA, and whatever Nigel Farage’s fucking circus is called for years. You can also see this in how Twitter’s content is managed. The dude has been putting in lots of very visible work boosting Nazi messaging and actual Nazi politicians/parties. Is it REALLY such a shock that he would, ahem, stop hiding his power level in such a public way after a win like the 2024 election? I don’t think so, and especially not if you accept that Musk believes there’s not going to be another meaningful election. I don’t think the other oligarchs think so either, that’s why they’ve been so quick to fall in line and pay their tribute.
It’s time to face the music. Chat, we might be cooked.
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People win elections all the time. People celebrate elections all the time. The last time somebody taking power did a gesture that looked like this was probably in Germany, 1933. This is no coincidence.
He was meddling with the afd in Germany, he’s proudly supports the apartheid in South Africa, and did a Nazi salute…
I mean, do we really need to spell it out for fucks sake?
I don’t think they are nazis, I think they are fascists. And I don’t think they even think of themselves as fascists, I think they just think power sets the rules and that a lot of people on the left’s attempts at ‘fairness’ are dumb, and (they think) ‘well if you want to call that ‘fascism’ then you’re an overreacting bitter delusional leftie’
Or something like that
I suspect he did it to take the piss. And to signal to elements of the right / far right that they should breathe a little more freely
Same way his government department is “doge”. Same way he named Tesla’s products “S.E.X.Y”. Many many things he does are bait.
But do I think musk stands for what the Nazis did? No. And I think he, and his type, enjoy thinking it’s “ridiculous” that anyone thinks that. “Obviously” he doesn’t want to gas the Jews. “Obviously” he doesn’t think all black people should be lynched.
But I do think he thinks it’s ok trans people are made to fear. That sub cultures are made to feel unwelcome. That non-‘wasp’ lives are ruined whenever convenient. That checks and balances in government are as changeable as the furniture.
I think he thinks industry should serve a grand national vision.
I don’t think he gives a shit what that vision is as long as it involves him getting even more stupid wealthy
So this pretty much sums up fascism. He’s a fascist not a nazi…
First, I hope you’re right. Still a shitty world but less so than what I’m imagining. The whole “we understand power so we are smart and everyone else is not as smart” is spot on.
But, I think it starts with no intention of gassing the Jews. But after a few generals have been replaced with lackeys, and those “deportation camps” in Texas start to be more trouble than they’re worth, and how convenient it was when that one bunch of them happened to die, a new final solution starts to look more probable. And of course the perpetrators of the new genocide are not the bad guys. They’re making the hard choices. They’re the smart ones and of course it made sense to do it since digging a mass grave was cheaper than feeding 10,000 recently ex-Americans in a camp far away. That’s just good economics, people! You have to think like a billionaire!
That might have gotten away from me, but I do believe there’s a slippery slope and our new President and his orange skinned bff are waxing up the toboggan.
As with how Nazism worked in Germany, I think a large amount of power and influence is happy to go along with whichever way the winds blowing but are not as committed to certain ideologies as much as the demogogues and fanatics. Hitler hid the final solution from the German populace, even when treating Jewish people like shit was a fairly normalised thing to do. That’s because even amongst the population of German ‘nazis’, many believed in the superiority of WASPs, would turn a blind eye to a Jewish person being beaten and robbed, but would balk at women and children being systematically exterminated on just a human level. Many “nazi” civilians were horrified and ashamed when the extermination camps came to light, even if they accepted concentration (prison) camps via ‘out of sight out of mind’.
I think it’s far more likely Trump and co will get into a situation where “natural” or mob “justice” does as much as they care to do in that regard. That is, if predominantly black areas of a city have high crime and murders “screw them that’s their fault”. If that leads to inequality and shorter lives “screw them that’s their fault”. If illegal migrants get turned back at the border and die in the desert “screw them that’s their fault”. If trans people suffer trying to fit into society “screw them they’re the ones who want to act different”. And so on.
I think it’ll absolutely result in suffering and death. But run an actual extermination camp in the 21st century? Well a) it wouldn’t be a secret at all b) for all its blagging America still very much needs its trading partners in Europe who would be horrified and c) a good chunk of maga would be horrified (some wouldn’t but a whole load would). As much as it’s fashionable to cast them all as brainrot sycophants, this isn’t quite true in reality…
I think Trump fascism is about power and about WASP culture prestige and superiority, but I think money counts for far more than ethnic ideology. By all accounts Maga has never had an issue with the EB-5 visa program (aka “buying a green card”). For about a million dollars anyone in the world can become a US citizen as long as they create 10 or more American jobs with their investment. Most of these visas go to Chinese immigrants, but applications are also accepted from Mexico, Vietnam, India, Nigeria etc. Last time he was in office Trump extended the program.
It’s all about power (according to them). If you’ve got money and you tow the line you’re fine irrespective of ethnicity. If you’re the “right kind” (white kind) of poor you may get help. Everyone else will find any kind of help very hard to come by even as their neighborhood becomes more lawless and lethal.
Amazing write-up. Thanks for the insight. I appreciate your contrast of the power/money dynamic in “Trump fascism” versus the ethnically driven dynamic in Hitler’s Nazism.
I’m having a moment of self reflection at my gut response of, “I hope FourPackets is right and all the human suffering and death is only due to defacto conditions and government passivity and not active genocide.” Both are awful but I guess this is the path we’re on.
I’ve met ironic Nazis before. Let me give you a spoiler, they’re actually just Nazis at the end of the day. The ironic bit is just a mask because they’re too chicken shit to admit it to themselves and others.
I think it’s fine to consider a fascist who does nazi salutes a nazi
It’s not a very interesting hair to split unless you’re perfectly fine with fascists who do nazi salutes but draw the line at people who identify as nazi
I think it’s a hair worth splitting because I find it very unlikely that he actually subscribes to the goals that the Germany Nazi party had. And I think he relies on this in order to cultivate the ‘owning the libs’ narrative he keeps with his supporters and acolytes. He’s fascist (and dangerous) and mischaracterising him plays into his hands to be honest…
That might be too narrow of a definition though. There may be self-identifying neo-nazis who don’t fit that. There were probably nazi party members who didn’t fit that, during the war.
There’s also no level of nuance that will impress the musk/trump supporters… they’ll consider “the libs” to be overreacting if someone said it was a gesture in slightly bad taste.
He did the Nazi salute twice, intentionally.
He said “my heart goes out to you” because of plausible deniability. He was giving his followers an argument to deny that he did it intentionally, both to themselves and others.
He has not directly denied it nor apologized for it.
European leaders are acknowledging it for what it is. Neo-Nazis are acknowledging it for what it is, and they loved it.
People who are sincerely on the fence about this, admitted they actually exist, need to wake the fuck up.
