No Stupid Questions

Read the Led by Donkeys tweet about all the shit he's been up to recently in Europe. He's gone full retard for white supremacists.

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.

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?

Yes, precisely. And it was undoubtedly a Nazi salute.

https://i.imgur.com/wpqNYi6.mp4

You tell me

The dudes family got rich using African slaves to dig diamonds out of the dirt. Oppression and dehumanization is in his blood. The only way to cure that is to let the blood out

Oh yeah, there's definitely a possibility. It's just that possibility is very very small.

I don't think so. My case:

• Just at the level of fuckin eyeballing it, the comparisons to how Hitler did it to how Musk did it are pretty damning.

• 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.

• 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.

The fact that this is even a conversation is just insane to me...

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.

If he had rehearsed his script, everyone would've pointed out the issue

We're talking about a man who has obviously fascist politics. Pretty much anyone knows not to do a nazi salute in front of millions of people, and he did it twice. Besides, if it somehow were an accident, he'd have immediately apologised.

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.

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.

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.

There is always a possibility that he did not intend it to be a Hitler salute, but that possibility is not very plausible, because…he pretty much did a Hitler salute and the odds of him being ignorant of that fact are extremely low.

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.

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.

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.

1. Elon did a thing.

2. People said "That's a nazi thing".

3. Elon didn't immediately say "No, I didn't do the nazi thing."

4. ∴ 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.

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.

Watch it again. It seems there is a split second hesitation before the first salute. Followed by a "let's just get that done full force" move. Kinda like people that are about to do a stunt the first time. One last "are we really going to try that?". It kinda implies intent and also that there is some sanity left there to make these decisions. Which gives me hope it's just Putin having a video of him and he is acting under duress. So definitively an intentional Nazi salute. Should try that in Germany and see how fast he gets arrested for that shit.

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..