On BBC Newsnight the panel of journalists and politicians were discussing Elon Musk’s emphatic salute at US President Donald Trump’s triumphal inauguration rally in Washington.
Probably most people have seen Musk’s Dr Strangelove moment by now but none of the panel would say what it most clearly was: a Nazi salute.
Musk did not just involuntarily raise his right arm and point his fingers to heaven. He slammed his right hand into his chest, paused for a long moment, and then thrust his arm outwards as tens of millions watched nationwide, and thousands of Trump supporters in the auditorium cheered.
At this point, many people were no doubt watching stunned and wondering if they had just hallucinated Musk’s gesture, but helpfully, he then turned his back and did the same salute to those in the seats behind him.
And yet somehow Gabriel Gatehouse, a seasoned BBC observer of US politics and the far right, played down the moment, as did the great sword-carrying failed Conservative leadership contender Penny Mordaunt. Gatehouse suggested it could be a “Roman salute” and compared it to a cartoon frog that appeared in the 2016 presidential campaign.
“Trump is a fascist! Let’s run a pro-genocide candidate to defeat him that parades around with Liz Cheney & praises Dick Cheney, a war criminal. Let’s send out Mark Cuban to tell everyone how much Democrats love big businesses. Let’s script all our interviews & only go on shows that already agree with us. Let’s attack other progressive candidates & say that they are Russian agents.”
Yeah, you did this to yourselves.
What does Elon giving a Nazi salute have to do with Trump? Last I checked nobody suggested banning links to truth social.
People don’t like Nazis and don’t like Musk.
Maybe other people are different but I would not be happy with Elon Musk and twitter if he gave a Nazi salute at a Kamala inauguration. Pretty sure most people don’t like Kamala and that’s why she didn’t win. Many people who voted for her probably thought she was less bad for America than trump.
I don’t like that the price of eggs keeps going up. At the same time I see the wealth of billionaires like Musk, Zuckerberg, and Bezos grow exponentially. Can’t help but put 2 and 2 together.
I don’t go to church, but I live by the teachings of the bible. Greed is one of the seven deadly sins. Musk has more money than he could spend in a 137,000 American lifetimes and it is still not enough for him.
I see all this online fighting between team red and team blue and can’t help but feel it is by design. Musk, Tik Tok, Google, and Zuckerberg control the algorithms they don’t want people cooperating. It is the best way they can keep the boot population’s neck as they hoard ever more wealth for themselves. At the same time everyone around mes quality of life continues to drop.
Don’t be so surprised that people don’t like Nazis. This isn’t 1940s Germany. At least not yet. Also in the 1940s plenty of people hated Nazis then too. There was even a war and although the Nazis put up a very good fight they were vastly outnumbered.
Also some of the highest grossing and most beloved movie franchises of all time (Star Wars and Indiana Jones) were about fighting and resisting Nazis.
I don’t find it surprising that many people don’t like Nazis but I do find it surprising that other people are.
Nice whataboutism. You are free to call out others where you see issues, that does not somehow make this any less worse or less noteworthy. No idea why you think that just because there is other shit means that we need to ignore this?
Because it is nothing more than tabloid gossip level opinions. The ADL already came out said it wasn’t a Nazi salute. You haven’t proved it was. You’re entitled to your opinions, but that is all it is. You do you though but Democrats will continue to lose if they scream at everything.
How to prove something is a Nazi salute if the way it is done is not said proof in itself?
Why do you trust the ADL in this?
I don’t but if anyone is a defender of the Jewish state it is the ADL. They want to make it illegal for students to protest what Israel has been doing in Gaza & are clearly against the ceasefire that Israel already broke, while blaming Hamas.
Being a Nazi has specific context & meaning. While rich people on the right like Musk may fit into some of those categories, it seems more likely that they just care about money & abuse of power, but that their ideology is substantially different than that of Nazis.
If anything it could be strongly argued that Israel’s ideology is much closer to that or Nazis.
At what point can we call musk a nazi then? If he publicly recites the 14 words?
I never said he isn’t a fascist, but again a fascist doesn’t have to be a Nazi. Democrats were calling Trump a Nazi before & it only backfired. I guess the question is do Democrats want to lose again in 4 years?
I don’t think the flavor of fascism is that important. We in Germany also call our local fascists neonazis, which got shorted to just nazis. It’s the same ideology.