I like James O’Brien’s take on the recent contretemps.
I would also argue that if you’re claiming it was not a Nazi salute, then you are either a Nazi-sympathizer or so stupid you don’t recognize the significance of what you’ve done.
One interesting thing about it all, though, is that Musk has managed to steal all the attention from Trump. That’s the greatest sin anyone can commit.
My vote is for both a nazi AND an idiot
Harhar, little Donnie did not get all the attention. In regard to the Gulf of America: the Arab countries want to call The Persian Gulf The Arab Gulf instead but have never gained widespread recognition over the established name.
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I do not recall if it was the speech on Sunday or on Monday, but he said we will have the External Revenue Service collecting taxes and tariffs from foreigners instead of Americans, so he is doubling down on that shit.
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By now, only a small circle of really ignorant MAGAs still believe foreign countries will pay tariffs for imports into USA but Trump is sticking to the claim.
Jimmy Kimmel brought attention to the line of sycophantic billionaires (Bezos, Musk et al) standing there as Trump said “the age of American dicklein (sic!) is over”.
Kimmel: “Yes the dick line is over there”.
Who is foolish enough or twisted enough to buy a car from this guy now? I’m having a hard time imagining who they are.
.1. A few months ago, at a red light, the car in front of me was a Tesla.
The bumper sticker read, “I bought this car before we knew Elon Musk was crazy.”
I’ve seen it on several other Tesla’s lately.
.2. Tesla car sales are definitely struggling.
They were down 6% last quarter.
There is no doubt that Elon Musk has turned away a huge percentage of the US population as potential customers.
There are other EVs on the market and they are all advanced engineering type models these days.
I will never buy anything even remotely associated with Elon Musk or the other Nazi and Nazi adjacent oligarches.
Yeah, these are not mutually exclusive options. I say both.
Yes, it wouldn’t surprise me to see Trump repudiate Musk – not, of course, because he objects to Nazis, but because of his attention-grabbing.
Let’s all give him the Swabian salute in turn!
I’ve already heard gaslighting commentary from right wing sites that Elon didn’t do what we saw him do.
I would argue Not Nazi Salute because he starts with his hand over his heart then sweeps out. I dredged up a bunch of historical film clips and all the salutes I saw started with one’s arm to the side. There were two kinds of salutes: arm out, palm down and arm at 90-degrees palm out. The second being more of an acknowledgment. Also, Musk is grinning like a baboon while Real Nazis ™ were deadly serious about their salute. Zero fun, sir.
Musk has all the money of Midas but no adulation, I think that’s what he’s after, now. Look at me, look at me! Now, when the Cabinet starts greeting Tangerine Palpatine with that salute, that will be dark times.
Why not both, etc.
But there’s a thing here that bugs me — a tendency to look for subtle clues, like a gotcha game, when these people aren’t subtle at all. We can know that Musk is a fascist by his openly stated policy positions. We don’t need to rely on gestures.
Big Brother tells you to deny what yours eyes see and only listen to what he tells you are allowed to believe.
Yeah, that’s not the important thing though. There are two important things here:
He just stood up and did this at about the most public and intensely observed event imaginable. That sends a very strong signal to his supporters that “This is OK now. We’re in charge”.
He and and of his supporters immediately pivoted to gaslighting literally the entire world, telling us that we hadn’t seen what we had just seen, and that he didn’t do what we just watched him do. And almost all of the “prestige media” went along with it.
That second point really is one of the key things about fascism – that they can tell you that up is down, black is white, and you didn’t see what you very definitely just saw, and almost everybody will go along with it.
Nemo @ #9 — “We can know that Musk is a fascist by his openly stated policy positions. We don’t need to rely on gestures.” True but he’s signaling to the clique within the clique that recognize it.
I don’t think it matters that it’s not one of the common Nazi salutes from the era. In any case, there were actually several variations, including the Italian Fascist salute. Even Hitler had a variation that he used as an acknowledgment: arm at his side, bent at the elbow with palm turned up to to the sky.
Interestingly the Germany military was not required to use the Heil Hitler salute normally until after the failed assassination attempt in July 1944.
I was done with Elon after the Thai cave rescue nonsense. The evidence on him has been out there for decades.
MSM: “Oh you hyper-sensitive libs. It wasn’t a fascist salute!”
Neo-Nazis: “No, no. It’s totally a fascist salute.” (https://youtu.be/C4ZLsP-x3AE?si=63E8J_xf0ZJYHTrp)
MSM: “You see, you have nothing to worry about!”
Edit: change decades to 6 years apparently. The Thai cave thing was in 2018. It’s been a long couple of years.
Assumptions I am unfortunately comfortable believing
If we were able to print out Musk’s brain we would find that
1.) he believes he got it from the Romans
2.) he knows Mussolini got the fascist salute from the Romans, etc.
3.) it would be perceived by many as a fascist salute.
4.) and that his ambition is to be the Emperor (or the puppetmaster behind the Emperor) when the “New Roman Empire” is founded!!!!!!! (Where do you think this wanting Canada, Greenland, and Panama is going…..?)
(I would put some serious cash on a wager that Musk has a very disturbing ‘party room’ in one of his residences…)
And quite a few people online seem to excuse Kackfrosch’s “accidental” Heil Hitler with his alleged autism…
As someone actually on the spectrum I’m so fed up with this! I don’t know if the Nazi-Twit actually is autistic, but autism is neither an excuse or an explanation for his behaviour nor would it be the defining thing about him: He’s an entitled, egotistic, immature arsehole before everything else.
I thought there is no evidence that the ancient Romans ever used such a gesture as a salute.
Fuck, haven’t you been paying attention to the neo-fascists’ favourite ploy over the past several years? Most commonly it’s a racist/misogynist/homophobic/fascist “joke” or “banter” that is entirely clear in meaning, acts to normalise the vile and grotesque, but allows for semi-plausible deniability, so the compliant “You’re over-reacting/just giving them the attention they want/don’t feed the trolls” idiots in the media and elsewhere will come to their assistance. This is exactly the same: it very obviously was a fascist salute, but not quite as the Nazis did it, so numpties like you can come up with stupidities such as the quote above.
seversky @ #18 — “I thought there is no evidence that the ancient Romans ever used such a gesture as a salute.” But many of the movies about the Roman Empire use this kind of salute. Surely they are historically accurate.
Wikipedia on the “Roman Salute” says: “According to an apocryphal legend, the fascist gesture was based on a customary greeting which was allegedly used in ancient Rome. However, no Roman text describes such a gesture, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern so-called “Roman” salute.” This cites a book by Martin M. Winkler titled The Roman Salute: Cinema, History, Ideology. So, yeah, everything Hollywood does is based on historical facts…NOT.
It is certainly not an authentic Roman gesture – there is virtually no evidence that Romans in any period made this gesture, let alone as a formal mark of respect to a military superior. The concept of the military salute as we know it does not come from ancient Rome, despite having a Latin-derived name. “salutatio” in Rome was a form of aristocratic early-morning greeting ritual, wherein clients and hangers-on (clientes) gathered outside their wealthier patron’s (patroni) house, to wish him good day, see if he had any errands they could run and maybe get some small gifts of cash or presents (sportula). It was a key part of forging and maintaining the web of diverse social connections that bound Roman society together.
The Romans did have a whole range of hand gestures, greetings and ways to show respect. Books on oratory by Cicero and Quintillian discuss the meaning of some of them. Some are reproduced in statues and on sculpted friezes. None match our Nazi salute.
THAT comes originally from post-revolutionary France and was constructed from very flimsy evidence by romanticising classical aficionados trying to portray French military custom as authentically derived from Rome. Of course it had to be Roman – in the late 18th Century that’s how Europeans conceived of power, authority and cultural value. Italian nationalists became enamoured with the idea after Napoleon’s attacks on their country, and soon you got the proto-Fascists like Gabrielle D’Annunzio and then the actual Fascists. Then the Nazis. Indeed, “self-serving spurious reconstruction of Roman power imagery” is pretty much a synonym for “Fascist”.
To be honest, expecting there to have been one, single, universally recognised gesture of greeting and respect in “Rome” is ridiculous. We’re talking anything up to 2000 years of history across almost the entirety of Europe and North Africa.
Not too much of a numptie to stand corrected. Prof. Wilson sets me straight:
https://youtu.be/8TuroVuFZtA?si=VMzJUGYoMixROIF8
The monsters have breached the gates.
James O’Brien hammers it home.
https://youtu.be/xXF94rIS9ZI?si=JIGkYtWd9GRoyAMO
I most carefully did not watch the inauguration show, so I missed the “salute” – enough of it around in the media anyway.
My personal take? Not yet a fascist salute, for the following reasons:
– EM is too much of a cretin even to be a fascist. I know it’s a real low bar, but he fails at reaching even that,
– he gives the impression to be quite physically uncoordinated, so who knows what he wanted to do. Some chimplike gambolling probably (sorry, cousin chimps),
– as someone notorious for partaking, who knows what was coursing in his system right then. I’d love to have an analysis and breakdown of his molelular components.
Anyway don’t worry, we’ll see much worse, like the 1500 insurrectionists just pardoned by the insurrectionist prez. Splendid.
Meanwhile, someone in Milan had the right idea:
https://milano.repubblica.it/cronaca/2025/01/21/news/elon_musk_fantoccio_piazzale_loreto_saluto_romano-423952726/
I just read that Musk is getting his own office in the West Wing. If true, that scuttles all the chatter about Trump being bothered about the attention Elon is receiving. If you’re the richest man on earth, Trump wants to hold you close.
I did not watch the ceremony and have only seen still pictures of Musk’s salute. Does not look like a Nazi salute to me. Hitler’s salute had the arm straight forward, Musk’s is out on a diagonal. Musk’s salute is a Nazi salute in the same way that Trump’s raised fist salute shows support for black power.
pwdm, you yourself might not see it as a Nazi salute, but the Nazis do.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/elon-musk-salute-reaction-right-wing-extremists-1235241866/
as do Germans, or at least the author of the article.
Ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß ist ein Hitlergruß
I saw someone else blame it on him supposedly being autistic
He’s dog whistling like these people do, the additional funny movements just serve to keep some residue of deniability.
@22 Doc Bill- Thank you for that, brief and to the point video. Prof Wilson said it; the word thuggery best explains Trump and the MAGA movement.
Of course you did. Ableist fuckheads gonna ableist. :/
Meanwhile, I don’t think it will be long before a lot of people — probably in the millions, or more — are regretting that nobody thought to bring their AR or something that could go “boom” to that particular party. Many of the worst people in recent history, if not in all of history, gathered within the blast radius of easily-improvised IEDs, a golden opportunity, yet no fireworks. Now what happens? Do we pin our hopes on a military conspiracy? There were several such against Hitler. None of those succeeded (unless the American/Soviet one counts) but then this latest bunch of chucklefucks don’t look half as competent, and there’s always the element of luck … perhaps what the Muskrat did will wake up some of the few remaining WWII vets and goad them into action?
Just because the Nazi salute didn’t look exactly like a ‘normal’ Nazi salute doesn’t mean that it was deliberately done that way; he could just have been clumsy.
The gurning special-K arsehole probably just decided on the spur of the moment to troll everyone, then tacked on “from my heart to you” (or whatever it was that he said) so he could claim plausible deniability if his friends and family were disgusted by it and turned on him. Typical coward/bully behaviour.