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.
It’s only a Nazi salute if it’s from the Nazi region in Germany, otherwise it’s just sparkling fascism
Seems like he could wear an SS uniform and some of you would quibble about the boots not being the right sort of leather. These are the sort of BS games fascists like us playing instead of calling them fascists
Smie-OT: Just read that Dumpf has pardoned the guy behind Silkroad, the darknet marketplace that helped Bitcoin what it is. Seems that was the demand of the crypto bros who sponsored Dumpf’s election.
So, dealing with drugs is now only a crime if you and your bros don’t pay the capo? Or is it a matter of skin colour?
What was that about law and order? We all knew Dumpf’s second regime would be more corrupt and criminal than the last attempt, but I had thought it would have taken a few more days to get that obvious!
[dangerousbeans, I did get the conceit. Quite nice]
For others: https://agriculture.ec.europa.eu/farming/geographical-indications-and-quality-schemes/geographical-indications-and-quality-schemes-explained_en ]
OK, thread won. Well done.
Jerry Coyne just wrote a piece on his blog insisting that Musk’s salute is totally not a Nazi salute.
It’s quite vile. It’s just horrible how some New Atheists are reduced to this.
Good post from Brain Merchant on the topic: Elon Musk did the Nazi salute on live TV to prove he could
Anyone claiming Musk’s salute doesn’t look like a ‘proper’ Nazi salute, please skip to around 27:30 in this video and watch for around 15-20 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/live/d05M0NEtZNQ?si=RAsaKIc-fUVmhokt
What, the Jerry Coyne who posts examples from history of Jews who were murdered by the Nazi regime is now closing his eyes to the emerging Nazi regime in the US? Say it ain’t so.
Good grief, I hadn’t visited Coyne’s blog in a long time, but I just did to see what’s being said over there and it’s astounding what a cesspit his comment section has become. Here’s an example:
‘I got Mein Kampf and Hitler’s Table Talk only recently. It is astonishing how articulate and wide-ranging Hitler’s thought was.’
My god, I thought you were making up that quote. But no, there it is, and ban-happy Coyne hasn’t banned him. Instead, he closes the thread with a link to Libs of TikTok to claim that AOC was using the Hitler salute.
He is such a fuckhead.
And curse you for making me look at his site again.
His comments section has always been a cesspit, or rather, a slymepit. I recognize some of the names from that ugly bit of internet history — apparently, they migrated to Coyne when the real slymepit was shut down.
Sorry, PZ. Although to be fair, Thornapple @38 started it!
@44 Sorry, not sorry.
That aside, how many others as like-minded as Coyne defending the Musk salute?
John Watts@25 it’s still early. Trump getting pissed at Musk for stealing some of the limelight is probably inevitable.
My predictions were:
Coyne gonna say it was not a Hitler salute.
Will say that DEI stuff Trump is doing is good.
Will ignore the “binary sex” declaration and wil not make any posts about it.
So far I am doing fine.
Jeez I was itching to mention somewhere that pretend left-leaner Coyne had sourced LibsofTikTok for something, but PZ has gone and done it already here. Yeah. Coyne uses Rufo, Andrew Sullivan, The Free Press and so many other right-wing sources and avoids Progressives and actual Leftist content because he is a pretentious poseur. That he uses LibsofTikTok speaks volumes.
And that poster over there who made the Hitler comment used to go by Thyroid Planet or some such and is pretty much a parrot of James Lindsay. He’s a Coyne worshipper as many are over there. There are some brave commenters who pushback on Coyne’s crap, and it is interesting to see how long they last. There are some blatantly obvious right wingers who Coyne may have sympathies with as they get no push back from him…some Leslie person…Canadian I think.
It is ridiculous how obscenely wealthy white male assholes can buy themselves a potus who is made in their image.
It is infuriating that so many fan-bois have now descended into justifying over-weening oligarchs throwing literal nazi salutes at the inauguration.
As if his habit of substituting a poop emoji for customer service at xitter wasn’t a clear message that he is just a shit-lord.
KG @ # 5: … it wouldn’t surprise me to see Trump repudiate Musk – not, of course, because he objects to Nazis, but because of his attention-grabbing.
Exactly why JD Vance disappeared from the public eye after the first week following his nomination, until day before yesterday.
But, if useful &/or servile enough, lapsing lackeys often get a second chance to sing Dear Leader’s praises…
And, back to the topic, it’s not a Real Nazi Salute™ unless he also clicked his heels!
In the news: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvged988377o
I don’t know, but pretty soon we’ll know where everyone stands. There will be those who called it what it was, and there will be those who denied, minimized, or excused it in some way or else carefully avoided voicing any opinion on the issue at all.
That line between these two groups? That will be the battle line.
And guess which side of that line Vivian Wilson is on — it’s not her daddy’s side:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-s-daughter-gives-fiery-response-to-nazi-salute-accusations/ar-AA1xFJTK?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=c55ba85f95e04331eaa202e7c62af248&ei=14
Vivian Wilson, who legally changed her name when she turned 18 to ditch the association with her father, did not name Musk but heavily hinted she was responding to the controversial incident at Monday’s rally at the Capitol One Arena.
“I’m just gonna say let’s call a spade a f***ing spade,” Wilson wrote on Instagram’s Threads platform on Tuesday. “Especially if there were two spades done in succession based on the reaction of the first spade.”…
Wilson appeared to hit back at claims on social media that Musk’s gesture could be explained because of his “autism” in a second post about the incident.
“I don’t know why ya’ll are reacting with such vigor, I’m clearly only talking about card suits,” Wilson said. “I mean I have ADHD and this was CLEARLY just an accident that people happened to interpret to mean something other than just card suits. After all, there’s no proof I’m not just talking about card suits,” she joked. “People assuming that I’m not just talking about card suits just goes to show how dishonest people/the media can be.”
Damn, I hope she runs for office someday soon!
He’s BOTH a Nazi and an Idiot.
@27
Nazi’s are free
Please ignore my previous comment. It was the start of something profound which I then decided was actually stupid. I intended to delete but hit Post Comment instead. Sorry to all.