Musk’s Trolling
A billionaire troll with a West Wing office.
I am likely violating the spirit of the post just prior to this one. And I will admit that I have mentally debated whether to even write this since it focuses on the outrage machine that is the current administration and its allies. Further, it is the kind of thing that some will see as an overreaction (although I think the topic to be very serious). At any rate, here we are.
So, I noted Elon Musk’s arm gesture on Inauguration Day. There is a debate as to whether or not it should be described as a Nazi salute. Musk has claimed that he was just sending out his heart to the crowd (although I think that there are more obvious ways to do so, as does Musk). None of us can know for sure what he was doing. I still maintain pretty much anyone knows what that gesture, delivered the way it was, looks like.
Of course, I could just take Musk’s word for it, but then we get stuff like this:
On one level, this is just trolling that uses Nazi jokes (as one does) as the basis. I will continue to point out my view on the “just joking” defense, which includes the fact that content and context matter and that assertions of people being humorless or not getting the joke don’t create infinite defenses of poor taste (or worse).
I think that it matters, and is worth noting, that a man of Musk’s wealth and influence behaves very much like a denizen of 4chan and like places. I scrolled through his Twitter feed to find the above (that I had originally seen via Bill Kristol). His feed is full of xenophobia and the same kind of juvenile edge lord behavior one finds in many online forums. He clearly likes to troll, which is behavior bad enough for anonymous randos but quite a bit more serious by a person with his wealth, influence, and access to the President of the United States.
There is also a question as to whether trolling and riling people up is truly harmless. I am not so sure that it is, especially at this scale. And the more that Musk and similar trolls make talking about Nazis seem cool/funny/edgy/unimportant, the more we are all diminished.
As such, I concur with Kristol.
But I think it’s noteworthy. Musk is a very wealthy and powerful man. He has an office in the West Wing of the White House. He controls, and aggressively uses for his own purposes, a major media platform. He has used that platform, that perch, that proximity to power, to trivialize the Holocaust with a supposed attempt at humor. His reluctance to quickly clarify what he meant with his salute has had the effect of further callousing us to such displays in the future.
Adding to it all is Musk’s clear embrace of the alt-right.
Pepe the Frog is a prominent alt-right symbol. A “Kek” is gamer slang that also has been adopted by the alt-right when combined with Pepe as per the above. See the SPLC for more details than you probably wanted to know: What the Kek: Explaining the Alt-Right ‘Deity’ Behind Their ‘Meme Magic’.
Musk is not rejecting this association; he is embracing it. Such an embrace rather enhances the chances that, at a minimum, he is dismissive of those who see Nazi symbolism as problematic. At the worst, it suggests he is sympathetic to those symbols.
And, let’s not forget his support of the AfD in Germany, which is far-right party that has been seen as neo-Nazi adjacent, if simply neo-Nazi. Or, as Kristol put it, “at the very least, anti-anti-Nazi.”
As I continue to be concerned about what appears to be at least a fascism-lite* within the current administration, it seems worth noting Musk’s behavior and views.
*Of course, that is kind of like talking about drinking “poison-lite.”
Musk’s behavior seems unhinged, attention-seeking, and ugly. The “hahahaha we’ll just say a bunch of trollish things to trigger the libs” is just so WEIRD. And appalling. I can’t decide if ignoring it would make it stop (if he’s really just seeking a reaction, I’d like to deny him the satisfaction) or if ignoring this behavior provides oxygen and energy to the alt-right/nationalist clowns.
And this is now what the world sees when it looks at the US.
Don’t want to go ot, but sweet jesus and the big one too, that is one weird bronzer job on DT.
It was a Nazi salute. We all saw it.
Maybe it was trolling rather than a sincere expression of his adherence to the tenets of National Socialism.
Ultimately, it matters not one iota. If it behaves like a Nazi…
Guy is a douche. I just ignore him. He plays to his audience. It is a cry for friends and acceptance, as he has no real friends. So much wealth and is a complete loser. Must suck to have all that money and no one really likes you, except the ones that hang with you because you have all that money.
@drj: Musk straight up saluted like the nazis that parade around Illinois occasionally..
I know a lot of you think it is a nazi salute. I do not agree. Nazi salutes don’t look like that. I just rewatched Das Boot(Highly recommended). There are Nazi salutes in it.
They are not this. This is the one and only time I will demur. Just know that there is not unanimity on this specific point.
Meanwhile, oh yes, it is clear he is friendly with alt-right and AfD etc. He is a guy who has espoused the view that smart people (like him) should run everything, and everyone else should just stand aside, because why should the country be run by people not as smart as him?
Fool that he is, he doesn’t understand the way he is being used by people who aren’t as smart as he is to get things that they want, and not necessarily the things he wants. It is really quite spectacular.
@Jay L Gischer: That’s not a nazi swastika it’s the Hindu swastika for good luck!!!
Das Boot is a good movie and a really accurate submarine movie at that.
@Matt: The problem is that you are being drawn into a battle on poor ground. You will not persuade anyone that isn’t already persuaded. In my opinion, pushing this line is a waste of time.
There are so many more things that he has said directly that would be much more fruitful to go after.
@Jay L Gischer:
1. I think Das Boot is a tremendous reflection on the human condition, expressed in cinema. Similar to Unforgiven.
2. I can’t believe how much purely speculative ink has been spilled over Musk. IMHO says more about the speculators than Musk. Don’t people have better things to do?
@Jay L Gischer: it certainly looks identical to the salute being made by the fine young men with the swastika flags in the first linked video in Dr. Taylor’s Friday Tabs post.
@Jay L Gischer: @Matt: Gee, I dunno how I feel about basing conclusions about what gestures mean historically on a movie produced several decades later, but by all means, you be you.
@Jay L Gischer:
My man.
Triumph des Willens is on YouTube. Check it out.
@Jay L Gischer: My wife says it was absolutely the Hitlergruss, and as she is a German person who was born and grew up in the intended seat of Hitler’s Thousand Year Reich, I trust her judgment on this.
Had Musk done this in Nuremberg, he’d have been arrested on the spot. The Germans do not fuck around when it comes to that gesture. You will go to jail.
@becca:
Very badly applied as well Notice how it only goes halfway down his throat? And the white circles around his mouth and eyes?
I’d hate to be an investor or creditor in one of his companies as he continues to display even more erratic behavior over time.
Image what it would’ve been like to be an office manager for My Pillow.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Drs5UHAMpTE
If anyone doubts the meaning of Musk’s salute, I challenge you to duplicate it in the center of Berlin.
Go ahead.
I dare you.
@rondo1342:
I bet you’re still sad about the outcome.
Because Musk has been a far-too-online RWer since forever, he thought this would be treated like the OK hand signal. As we can see, it’s not.
This also explains his dissembling after buying Xitter regarding his intentional shadowbanning of left-wing content.. in a shocking twist, the left was correct all along, as usual.
Musk isn’t interested in Free Speech in any way.. he promotes right wing views only.
And that right there is the fun conundrum.. MAGA can’t [won’t] comprehend that they’re not doing the winning.. because no matter how you want to define issues, the problems are not right vs left, it’s super-rich vs everyone else, and the vast majority [by definition] fall into the everyone else category.
@Jay L Gischer:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFGp1AHy6VI/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFF9OAiuBXl/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFF9OAiuBXl/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
If you still aren’t convinced, we will start a gofundme page to send you to Berlin so that you can duplicate it there.
Incorrect, they look exactly like that.
Here’s a side-by-side video of Musk’s salute and real life neo-Nazis (not Hollywood movie Nazis) doing the salute. Exact same gesture and timing.
And here’s Musk’s dad revealing Elon’s mothers parents were Hitler fanatics who moved to apartheid South Africa because of its white supremacy.
Now one might not know Musk’s motivations. Was he trolling? Is he secretly a neo-Nazi? Was he just signaling? In his autistic excitement, did he relapse to his grandparents’ house? The why is an open question. The what much less so. There is little reasonable doubt that the gesture, which Musk repeated three times there, was the type of gesture that would get you arrested in Germany for promoting Naziism.
If one has told himself all one’s life that one would have resisted Hitler, but in this moment is found downplaying, denying, and making excuses, one has learned something unpleasant about oneself.
So no need to wonder how Depression-Era Germany — lacking modern America’s various structural and institutional guardrails — could’ve devolved from the queer openness of 1920s Berlin society to Auschwitz. People who should know better going dumb speeds the process.
Trump said Hitler ‘did some good things’ and wanted generals like the Nazis, former chief of staff Kelly claims (PBS)
1990 report: Ivana Trump told her lawyer Donald Trump kept Hitler speeches beside bed (CNN)
Apparently some won’t get it unless Trump and Musk smack them in the forehead with a 2×4 inscripted with “We’d do Nazi stuff if we could.” And that might not even work on the most thick. Big yikes.
@Jay L Gischer:
Hardly anyone thinks it. Some people believe it, and some people are going to repeat it, but no one is arriving at it via thought.
A reminder about Musk, he for sometime has exhibited behaviors that fit the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. On a positive note, some bipolar behaviors can be beneficial and aid creativity and the energy to accomplish goals, but it is quite easy for what was helpful for him to become self destructive. If Musk were simply a middle class shlug, he would likely being pressured to seek professional care either by friends and family or the legal system. But Musk is a wealthy, self medicating maniac who is becoming the 21st century Howard Hughes.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen Das Boot.
But:
1) It’s a movie from 1981.
2) Viewers are supposed to sympathize with the crew of the U-96.
3) The majority of the crew is portrayed as being anti-Nazi/disillusioned with National Socialism (even though Germany’s Ubootwaffe was, in reality, among the more fanatical/politicized of Nazi Germany’s armed branches).
4) Perhaps it would be hard for a 1981 West-German audience to sympathize with committed Nazis displaying the correct/customary Nazi salute.
Which is to say that a work of fiction produced 30 years after the fact shouldn’t be the best guide as to what Nazi salutes actually looked like.
(Of course, there exists plenty of contemporary footage showing that Musk’s gesture was, in fact, indistinguishable from the one used by actual Nazis.)
@Fortune:
You’re such a nice little toady, ready to disbelieve your own eyes whenever your cult demands it.
“Please tread on me, daddy.”
Netanyahu Defends Elon Musk Amid ‘Nazi Salute’ Allegations (Forbes)
So Israel’s corrupt failure of a prime minister defends a Nazi, and the Nazi rewards him with more of the weird attempted-jokes he’s been pushing, that reference Hitler and the Holocaust.
Didn’t have Bibi and the ADL becoming collaborators on my 2025 bingo card.
Those who rage at dumb college kids (and wokeness, pronouns, and poor migrants) but shrug off a White House office for a Nazi-saluting billionare oligarch who cozies up to Germany’s former Nazi party…
…are probably not the most ethical, intellectually honest people.
@DK:
This is where non-ideologues think to themselves, maybe I’m the one misinterpreting it.
@Fortune:
You’re slightly right.
It’s an immediate recognition that strikes before the far slower conscious thought.
Conscious thought trails after with a “that can’t be what I saw, can it? Sure looks like it. Maybe there’s a reasonable reason. Maybe he will put out a heartfelt and horrified apology for accidentally Seig Heiling a couple times, like the time my mind blanked and I ordered a Negro Modello beer with the absolutely worst pronunciation… oh, none of that. This is the world we live in? Fuck.”
And, that same conscious thought makes me mark you down as probably just being a fucking Nazi for trying to gaslight people on this.
And that slow, conscious thought takes into account Jay L Gisher’s long history here and assume he is wildly misinformed about Nazi salutes or desperately doesn’t want to live in a world where people are doing Nazi salutes at the Presidential inauguration.
But you… I think you want to live in that world. I think you salivate at it. Either to own the libs, or just because you’re a fucking Nazi. I think both, actually. The only doubt I have is that you might be dumb enough to believe that the Nazis were socialist, but still want that good, fascist government without all that socialism.
That can’t be a Nazi salute, because you and your friends do it all the time, and you’re not Nazis, is that it?
Like I said, I’m not about to be drawn into this argument. Have a great day.
@DK:
Don’t forget Charlottesville and good people.
@DK: Netanyahu has been cozying up to the American right wing for ages. He knows who they are, that they contain a large number of White Supremacists, White Nationalists, Christian Nationalists, Neo-Nazis and Just Plain Nazis. It’s always been an alliance of convenience.
Both he and the American Right hate the Palestinians. The American right is willing to work with him to hurt Palestinians (and will get to the Jews later), and he is willing to work with the American right to get weapons to hurt Palestinians, and kick the can down the road on that Jew thing.
The ADL has always had a strong pro-Israel bent. Traditionally, it has opposed antisemitism, and expanded antisemitism to mean any criticism of the Israeli state.
I’m surprised that when push comes to shove they will completely excuse obvious antisemitism when it comes to national tv. I would have expected a “that looked really bad, but we don’t think he meant to do it and await a filled of an apology for accidentally doing something that looks like a Nazi salute” statement.
But, apparently not, and people should go to their offices, stand out front, and gesture that their heart goes out to the ADL.
Probably against my better judgment, I have some thoughts.
About the trolling.
I think a lot of it is because trolling is super common online, especially in places like X/Twitter and also gaming spaces where Musk does seem to spend a lot of time. Even back in the days when it was Twitter and left-wing voices were more dominant, trolling was common and endemic. It’s one of the reasons I have always hated Twitter and have called it a mind cancer because it promotes and incentivizes sarcastic snark and douchey behavior. And there is really no better example of that than watching what it’s done to Elon Musk.
Secondly, my right-wing friends tell me the trolling is deliberate as a way to try to demonstrate just how dumb and foolish they think the name-calling from the left is. It’s poking fun at the “dumb libs” for saying/believe something so obviously stupid (to them). No one I know on the right thinks Musk is a Nazi, and obviously, they don’t consider themselves remotely Nazi-like at all. The tweet with all the Nazi names inserted by Musk is, to them, deliberately mocking all the people who are saying Musk is actually a Nazi or that what he did was intended as a real Nazi salute.
Third, I’ve heard more than once from right-wing friends that liberals and Democrats have been calling Republicans and people on the right Nazis and fascists for decades. That is certainly true! The new populist dynamic on the right is that it was a mistake for Republicans and conservatives of the past to try to seriously argue and defend against those characterizations. They find it liberating to mock, make fun of, and troll them instead, and certainly DJT, with his shamelessness, has provided the permission structure for that.
And Democrats and the left have dipped their toe into this on occasion as well – the best-known example being the “Dark Brandon” meme.
As for what counts as alt-right signaling, I’d just point out that not every or even most uses of Pepe and KeK and other things are alt-right. Those have been used for years in online subcultures, and the alt-right has adopted them, but they don’t really own that brand. I’d also mention the OK hand sign stupidity from a couple of years ago where “Operation O-KKK” by 4chan trolls succeeded in getting the hand sign to go viral as a supposed symbol of white supremacy, which many liberals ran with, with predictable bad effects on normal people using it. White supremacists use the OK sign, but it’s also used by trolls as irony, and by normal people who don’t follow weird online cultures and controversies. Part of the purpose of Operation O-KKK was to cause confusion and make it difficult/impossible to know if someone using the OK sign is a normal person, ironically trolling, or a bona fide white supremacist. And it succeeded at that.
KeK and Pepe are similar in that, yes, the alt-right does use them, but so do people who aren’t in the alt-right, including people who are just being ironic, trolling, or trying to be edgy.
In my view, the first rule of the internet is: don’t feed the trolls. Observant commenters will note, for example, that I don’t engage with the trolls that appear here in the comments, either on the right or left – at least those who occasionally make it through moderation. Trolling is explicitly attention-seeking behavior, and in my opinion, the best cure is not to feed it with attention.
Obviously, that’s much harder with someone like Musk, but I think it would be more effective to try to starve his attention-seeking behavior of oxygen rather than take the bait and turn the outrage up to 11.
@Daryl: Even Politifact backed off the “good people” story. So now ADL, the government of Israel, and Politifact are all Nazis…or you’re wrong. How many more people will become Nazis in your head before you consider the alternative.
@Connor:
The takeover of our Government by neo-Nazis/white supremecists seems important.
I assume that Trump has already told Musk not to worry about all those NASA, DoD, and NRO contracts that SpaceX already has, and that the fix is in on future contracts.
@Fortune:
Here’s a side-by-side video of neo-Nazis saluting and Musk’s Nazi salute.
Here’s how those actual far right neo-Nazi groups “interpreted” it: Neo-Nazis Love the Nazi-Like Salutes Elon Musk Made at Trump’s Inauguration (Wired)
Unsurprising since side-by-side video shows it was literally the exact same gesture, which Musk (grandson of Hitler fanatics) repeated three times.
Here’s what Israel’s oldest Jewish newspaper (est. 1918) thought of that: Musk’s ‘Fascist Salute’: U.S. Jewish Establishment Failed Its First Test With Trump 2.0
Here’s the establishment collaborators backtracking, after the Jewish diaspora declined to join the gaslighting: After holding fire, major Jewish groups condemn Musk’s latest Nazi commentary (Jewish Insider)
Here’s Musk rewarding the collaborators with more antisemitism: Elon Musk jokes about Nazis after Netanyahu defends him as ‘great friend of Israel’ (Times of Israel)
Non-ideologues are capable of admitting they were wrong, and eventually doing what’s right.
Ideologues make excuses for everything Trump and those around him say and do, every day and every time without fail.
Phonies do that while denying their obvious bootlicking Trump worship.
@Fortune:
Heil MAGA. Heil Trump.
@Connor:
We’ve been asking this about our MAGA trolls for years. And yet y’all are still here, still triggered, still whining about the content and commentary here. Nothing better to do?
I do agree that Trump and President Musk need to get around to lowering prices and reducing crime. Nazi salutes, Twitter Holocaust jokes, and releasing 1,500 Jan 6 criminals won’t do the job.
@Connor: I think I’m the Welcome Wagon. Hope to see you around unless you’re crazy in which case I’ll disown you. Or maybe I’m your sponsor, and I just got my “should have been drinking for the last three months” chip.
But this is not the right place to ask “don’t people have better things to do?”. They think this is very important.
@Fortune: Is it very important to come this place every day to complain and cry about the commentary herein?
Don’t bootlicking apologists for Epstein-bestie rapist Trump and Nazi-saluting oligarch Musk have better things to do?
@DK: Just knowing you’re here, my little bird, keeps me coming back.
I swear people think innocent until proven guilty is some underlying principle of the universe. It’s a rule of jurisprudence, also applied to the media in discussing criminal cases. Even in civil cases it’s the preponderance of evidence that decides.
If it looks like a Nazi salute and it smells like a Nazi salute, it’s a Nazi salute, and the burden is on Musk if he wants to claim otherwise.
@gVOR10:
Notably, despite all his idiot trolling, he has not claimed otherwise.
@DK: BTW if you’re trying to do good-cop bad-cop you’re supposed to stop the name-calling and say “look why are you even doing this, buddy? You know it’s not working out.” Then I say “wow, if DK is talking to me from the heart, maybe he isn’t a mindless clown and I should leave him to make stupid comments without pushing back anymore”.
@Andy: Honest question: so at what point are we supposed to take any of this seriously?
When does the deployment of these symbols matter?
Again: the man supports the AfD. Is that trolling, too?
@DK: You should also know I skipped the first Musk Salute comment section because the whole premise is so stupid and I only read every fifth or sixth article. But with article #2 I thought someone better state the obvious. Imagine if someone put in an effort to point out how stupid your opinions are.
Whether nazi in chief Xlon is an actual nazi or not is not the relevant point.
What’s relevant is he felt confident and comfortable enough in performing a nazi salute, more than once, in a nationally televised event that millions of people and news organizations were watching. And further that his side of the aisle hasn’t seen fit to demand an apology or even to criticize him for it.
even as recently as 2020, the GQP would have demanded nazi in chief Xlon be fired off his quasi-governmental post. Now, they rush to defend him.
If this doesn’t scare you, in heaven’s name why not?
@Gustopher: Why does Gastro Intestinal Robot want to kill Nazis? I’m confused.
Fortune, you aren’t anyone’s buddy, you’re the troll whose every post gets ratioed because right is wrong and left is best.
Nobody likes you – and just like every Republican, you keep coming back because you truly, madly, deeply seek the approval of Democrats.
And you’ll never get it, no matter how much energy you put in.
@Jen:
@Stephen
Jen and Stephen, I like both of you, but this is a potentially catastrophic reaction. The guy is a fascist. He made a sieg heil. Thinking that it is just trolling is like making excuses for an abuser – naive and dangerous. And saying “We can never know” is just trying to push it into the theoretical and therefore diminish its importance. Yes, we can know. We don’t have to have 100% certainty before we act. That’s the argument of tobacco and oil companies, making fools of those who went along because, as we know now, they knew it was all bullshit. If a guy walks into a room waving a gun around and screaming, it’s criminally negligent to say, well we can’t know if he’s dangerous because he’s never explicitly said he would kill us.
@Jay L Gischer:
With that as your goal, it probably would have been wiser to not open (or reopen) an argument where your case is 1) so volatile, and 2) so readily argued against. There are literally dozens of things that I don’t say here on any given week.
ETA: You’re only getting a fraction of the musings I make (sometimes aloud) about what I read here and only the least unpalatable, mostly.
@Gustopher:
Me too. I’d expect these weak tea fence-straddling sellouts to just not say anything at all. To actively run interference for their far right masters is just pathetic.
But it’s always easier to attack the relatively poor and powerless (college kids, migrant moms, the genderqueer) than to stand up to the powerful, dangerous wealth hoarders behind nearly every single world problem.
The latter requires real courage and/or real principles, not the performative, conditional ethics of the reactionary, mushy middle.
@MarkedMan: I think both things can be accurate. I believe Musk is a white nationalist. His family history, like Trump’s, has some disturbing and grotesque opinions threaded throughout. I also think that he is childish and frankly, unbalanced enough to behave in a way that he knows is unacceptable, which is the definition of trolling.
I am most concerned right now that too many people are checking out, for self preservation and mental health reasons, to make a difference.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Opinions vary, but in my case, I only take trolling seriously in very rare cases.
Also, it would also depend on who you mean exactly by “we” and what taking this seriously looks like in the real world as opposed to not taking it seriously. How, exactly, are we supposed to take Musk’s trolling seriously vs. not seriously?
As I’ve said many times before, my rule of thumb is that I start taking things seriously when I see actions in the real world, not mere rhetoric. Again, that’s a rule of thumb, not an iron law. There is too much rhetoric, bloviating, trolling, sarcasm, catastrophizing, venting, etc. to be able to figure out which of it to take seriously, especially on a cancerous platform like Twitter where unconstructive and unserious dialog is incentivized. IMO, 99.9% of the crap put on Twitter should be ignored. It’s actions in the real world that actually matter.
Like anything else, it depends on the context and situation in which they are deployed. If one wants to police every instance of KeK and Pepe or the OK hand sign, then one has several lifetimes worth of work ahead of them. Again, I think playing into this and taking it all seriously is to play the troll’s game by the troll’s rules.
I don’t think that’s trolling – he’s interviewed the candidate for chancellor, after all.
In principle, I don’t think Americans, especially prominent ones like Musk, should get involved in politics in other countries. I think the fact that he’s doing that is worse than the party he’s chosen to endorse. That said, AfD is a bad party, but they are not Nazis, unless one thinks ~20% of Germans are Nazis.
@Gavin:
Right?
So this clown doesn’t support Trump, but bends over backwards to lick Trump’s rapist pedophile butt daily. Complains about the commentary here, but is still here daily because he’s obsessively triggered with someone he says is stupid. And spent an hour spiraling with three back-to-back comments on the focus his obsession, which is supposed to demonstrate a “lack of effort.”
Imagine being so fake to think any of this makes sense.
Then again, everything about today’s right is fake, from their fake president on down. Contemporary conservatives are so deep in their mental prison, they think normal people can’t recognize their bitter, angry depression.
Guess that’s what happens after one wins an election (barely) only to:
a) find higher-than-ever egg prices, unadressed.
b) find your daddy releasing 1500 criminals — including violent Boogaloo Boys, Oath Keeper, Patriot Prayer, and Proud Boys thugs.
c) find yourself further debased — having gone from defending pedophilia to defending this side-by-side video of neo-Nazis and Musk’s Nazi salute.
Sad!
Maybe it was “technically” a Nazi salute, or maybe not.
Maybe Musk was “just trolling”, or maybe not.
But doing something like that at a US presidential inauguration is significant in itself.
Having a major player on the platform who does something like that, whether signifying fascism, autism, trollery-lollery, lib pwnage, or general lack of self-control is quite significant.
I have difficulty imagining this happening at most previous presidential inaugurations since 1936 (well, maybe 2016?)
Or at any British party conference or press conference (we don’t do inaugurations).
Decorum is a sometimes under-rated basis of a functional polity.
That said: I’d not get overly fixated on this.
The big picture is the thing in politics. Not idiotic performative gestures.
The AfD in Germany don’t do Nazi salutes in public (yet); but they are lot more scary, imho, than Musk will ever be.
@Andy:
And yet, in 1932 33.09 of the Germans deiced to vote for the NSDAP.
So, it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility.
Though opinion analysis indicates the vote is mainly based on Ossi grump-grievance, and in former West Germany anti-immigrant sentiment and the similar resentments of the lower-middle class (European, not US, sense).
But then, a lot of the Nazi vote was also based on such things: had the German votes in the 1930’s been an explicit referendum on “we shall start a world war, enact genocide, and end up getting f@cked” the votes might have been otherwise.
There’s this saying that even if you only fornicate with goats ironically, you are still a goat-fornicator.
Treating anything Nazi-related lightly is a sign of such moral depravity that it is effectively no different than being one.
On Bluesky I keepnreposting posts from the Auschwitz Memorial, where they profile the individuals murdered.
It took almost a decade to go from the beginnings, to the Final Solution and we are hearing the same words, the same logic, the same smirking depravity.
And if this comparison makes you clutch your pearls, settle for a repeat of Jim Crow where members of the outclass were assaulted, raped, or murdered with impunity.
This is what they want to return to.
@Steven L. Taylor:
After the detention camps at the border are liberated. Then all who spending the intervening years downplaying fascist creep can pretend they weren’t warned and didn’t know.
@MarkedMan: It is empirically true that we cannot know his state of mind.
But, again, I think you are misreading me. I am the one writing the posts bringing attention to this in the first place.
I realize I may only be going to 8 and you want me at 11, but am I really being that unclear as to my position?
@DK: It’s an interesting theory, but I’ve noticed he ignores most of your comments but you respond to half of his. Then every now and then he goes mental on someone. Maybe he’s trying to make a point about fighting back against bullies.
@Andy:
This is where you kind of drive me crazy, as you often take me addressing a specific instance but claim that I am including everyone (you did that in the Budde post as well).
I am specifically focusing on Musk and not every instance of Pepe and Kek.
It seems pretty obvious to me he is identifying with the alt-right.
@JohnSF: Agreed all around.
@JohnSF: Indeed.
@Fortune: Well that’s an odd comment. Impersonation? Or did someone confuse their personalities and put the wrong name in the text box this time?
Curiouser and curiouser. Troll quality has steeply declined as the smartest, most successful millennials and Xers aged out of the internet and into real life. Maybe ChatGPT can pick up the slack.
BTW: we’ve already an attempted insurrection, which included a number of far-right figures, and the new president has pardoned them all/commuted their sentences.
We have a number of policy actions aimed at immigrants, including an attempt to change birthright citizenship.
And Musk is promoting a message of crime-based xenophobia and, again, has an office in the West Wing and was stating that because of the election, “the state of civilization is assured” during the rally with the hand gesture..
I think there is enough action taking place to at least warrant some heightened attention, yes?
@DK: I checked the IP and I think it’s the same guy. He might be toying with you!
@Steven L. Taylor:
Ok, but you specifically asked:
I gave you my response to that question. I’m sorry, but I didn’t understand that the question was supposed to be about Musk specifically. But the answer would be the same. While those symbols are associated with the alt-right they are not exclusive to it.
Coming around full circle, the open question is the extent to which Musk is actually a Nazi, alt-right, just trolling, or whatever. You and I both seem to agree that we can’t read the man’s mind. I don’t know if Musk is playing a game, trolling, or is a real-life Nazi, but it would be an odd Nazi that wants to import more skilled workers regardless of background and hasn’t given any evidence he’s anti-semitic. There’s enough ambiguity that a ground-swell of anti-Musk sentiment over his statements and behavior has yet to materialize despite the high level of criticism. Maybe if people, like some in the comments, keep repeating their opinions on the matter louder and louder, that will change. But as I’ve noted, we’ve seen this same dynamic play out many times and it very rarely changes anything. Constantly hitting the panic button over and over hasn’t exactly worked out very well.
So what is to be done? I asked you – and you didn’t answer – what taking Musk’s words and behavior seriously vs not seriously means in practice? What specifically do you suggest we or I do?
@JohnSF:
I think the significance remains to be seen. It’s quite likely this will fall off the radar in a month or less. The fundamentals haven’t changed. Liberals hated Musk before, now they hate him more and it’s confirmed everything they suspected about him. MAGA liked Musk before, now they like him even more. Most of America is busy with their lives and not paying attention. Unless it has some lasting effect, or other yet unknown shoes drop in the future, it will just be another outrage that consumed a news cycle or two.
Secondly, I think significance is a comparative attribute. In normal pre-Trump world with a normal administration, this would be a much bigger deal. In shameless post-Trump world? It’s just another Tuesday. The significance of optics and decorum at a public event is, IMO, insignificant compared to – for instance – the Trump administration’s attack on the 14th amendment.
The more time spent debating and speculating about what’s going on in Musk’s weird brain, the less time is spent debating and discussing things with substance and real-world effects. This is the “flood the zone” strategy at work.
My dude, you know well that Weimar is nothing like modern Germany. It’s in the bounds of possibility only in the most speculative sense.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Yes, I agree it warrants heightened attention. That is a good way of characterizing it. There is not much to do besides observe and see how Musk behaves and what actions he takes going forward.
BTW, I endorse Ben Dryfess’ latest:
@Andy:
As I said:
Obviously modern Germany is not Weimar.
The CDU/CSU is not about to embrace fascism, or seek terms with the AfD
Most (West) German conservatives ( I know quite a few) utterly despise the AfD.
But the rise of the AfD is a serious concern; especially if you include the BSW in the category of “Ossis with the ‘ump”.
The political split of former FDR vs DDR is quite obvious, and very concerning.
I think (=hope) the CDU/CSU plus SDP can hold the line.
But just look at the AfD votes and polling, and then tell me that’s not troubling.
Because it surely troubles me.
As does the RN in France, for that matter.
@Andy:
Look, I am not going to pretend like talking about this changes the world. I am a retired political science professor writing a blog.
All I can do, and am doing, is trying to bring attention to things that I think are worthy of attention in the hopes that more people are aware of the things that I think merit that attention. I am hoping that people will think about them. Maybe it affects vote or an opinion, or has some broader network effect. Maybe it does nothing.
Maybe it will make me think better and more deeply over time about the subject. Maybe my views change or evolve.
Maybe it eventually leads to some kind of concrete action or proposal.
Is all of that what public discourse is about?
I am also unclear on what not talking about this stuff accomplishes.
@Andy:
Which speaks to the way all of this progresses. Ignoring it won’t help stop the progression.
I think it matters who is influencing decision-making and helps put outcomes in context.
Which is essentially all that I am doing, yes?
@Andy:
My initial, somewhat snarky response is: that that is a bad strategy for a blog predicated mostly on daily reactions to the news (and definitely won’t work for cable news). I mean, I will agree that for full understanding, time had to pass.
Look, I agree that ongoing outrage is a problem. I am also going to agree that I, like many people, am dealing with an overload of disquieting news (this morning it was about the likely firings of IGs not to mention the utter nonsense about water flows in CA).
By the same token, it is not surprising for someone who has written about serious concerns about fascism in the past to notice symbology and rhetoric that are Nazi–esque and Nazi-adjacent rhetoric from powerful people associated with the administration.
I know your preference is to downplay all of that, but I think that I am not being simply knee-jer here, either.
@JohnSF:
Agreed.
@Steven L. Taylor:
And we are just commenters, commenting on a blog. It’s fine if you want to prioritize this as important – as I said, it’s a big, diverse country, and people can reasonably disagree on such things.
My personal focus is not on optics, but on things of real consequence that are actually happening, like the attack on the 14th amendment, the border EO’s (here’s a great primer that’s being passed among my friends who work at NORTHCOM), the overnight firing of IG’s, and other things which are having effects in the real-world right now, not some speculative future effect that may or may not come with Musk’s salute, trolling and bizarre behavior.
To put it another way, let’s assume you and others here convince me that Musk’s behavior is significant and important. Ok, what then? It’s not clear to me what I should do with that assessment that I’m not already doing. I already think Musk is a bad political actor. I already think/wish he had never bought Twitter and gotten red-pilled. I already think he should not interfere in foreign elections. But I’m a realist at heart, and wishing things were different is not a strategy. There’s nothing more I can do or say on that score that doesn’t amount to useless virtue signaling in a blog comment section.
By contrast, Trump’s actual moves and policies have actual significance right now, with clear pathways to oppose them. The importance of what Trump is doing – again, in my opinion – far outstrips the Musk sideshow. And since time, energy and attention are all inherently limited resources (something that I’m realizing more and more as I get older along with a health scare earlier this year), I’d prefer to focus my attention there. And I have no issue with you prioritizing things differently, I simply disagree and reserve the right to disagree.
And yes, I realize the irony/hypocrisy of saying that while engaging in this thread, but part of my goal is to try to shift attention to things that I believe are more important.
@JohnSF:
Look, I don’t want the AfD in power either. But that is ultimately a problem for Germans to solve. It doesn’t get solved by voicing speculative concerns about what the AfD might do someday or worst-case analysis against the available evidence that they might control the government; it involves determining why the AfD is getting support and other parties taking measures to weaken it politically and bleed off their supporters.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I don’t think you are being a “knee-jer” here. And I’m only downplaying it in a relative sense compared to things that I believe are much, much more important. If those more important things were not happening, this would flow to a much higher level on my priority ladder.
@Andy:
Well, that thought had occurred to me. 😉
And you have every right to do so.
But I think you are undercutting some of your questions about what is to be done if you agree that there is room to argue about these things.
@Andy:
On the one hand, you are correct.
On the other, do you have a measuring stick I can use to make sure I am only writing about the truly important?
@Steven L. Taylor:
Disagreements between us about what is more or less important in terms of relative priorities is not a criticism by me of what you choose to blog about or not blog about. IOW, I’m not asking you to conform your postings to my personal preferences – quite the opposite – If everything here aligned with my views, then there wouldn’t be much point in engaging here at all.
Perhaps if someone used their hand and arm together, they could demonstrate the level of importance some topic has. Not at the floor, not at your waist – it’s useful to write about a topic when this Level Of Importance is slightly above your head.
If only we had a demonstration of this!
No more of any of the long list of fallacious arguments. Elon was giving a Nazi salute – period dot, end of story. The fun, of course, is watching sweaty Republican tryhards desperately claim it wasn’t Nazi while actual Nazis gleefully confirm that of course it is.
This quote fits Republicans perfectly. Where I’ve put ___, substitute Republicans.
“Never believe that ___ are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The ___ have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”
In 1944, Sartre originally put “anti-Semite” in those blanks.
@Andy: Fair enough.
@Steven L. Taylor:
@Andy:
Woman duplicates Elon’s salute. She’s had to resign from several positions
Of course she’s not the richest person in the world. If she were, she would have people excusing what is obviously a Nazi salute.
As to ” what is to be done”, I regard white supremacists and Nazis as I would pedophiles, practitioners of something so abhorrent they must never be tolerated in any form.
They should not be treated as if their views are debatable or within the window of acceptable discourse.
@Gavin:
Musk has not denied it was a Nazi salute. Because it was a Nazi salute. Wildly inappropriate and dangerous stuff.
Of course the world’s richest man, an adviser to the nominal US commander-in-chief, signaling to Nazis is an important story worthy of note. Why even dignify the clowns suggesting otherwise?
@rondo1342: 88% of Jewish women and 72% of Jewish men voted for Kamala Harris, opposing the election of Hitler-admirer Trump and his owner, Nazi billionaire Musk. Many Muslims helped elect Trump because of Biden’s pro-Israel policy.
Imagine being such a Trump slave you’ll even claim almost all American Jews are Nazis — just to defend an illegal immigrant African oligarch who wants to replace high-skilled US workers with H1B immigrants. Sad.
@Jay L Gischer: I think that the primary issue is that Musk, and his buddy Thiel, never got past a young person’s reading of Ayn Rand. In passing the wealth threshold (a variable dependent on a person’s true self), these and others like them see only a fictional, idealized version of themselves that far outstrips their actual value to the human race. And their somewhat above average intelligence helps them rationalize inhumanity in service to their perceived superiority. I labeled Musk TechTrump years before he made it public – sometimes I hate being right. But I hate so much more that humanity has to suffer because of him and those like him.