Sieg heil
Musk has gone full Nazi already.
Elon Musk waded into controversy on Monday when he gave back-to-back fascist-style salutes during celebrations of the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.
Gee, I wonder why two Nazi salutes at a change in government would be of interest.
“I just want to say thank you for making it happen,” the owner of SpaceX, X and Tesla, the richest person on earth and a major Trump donor and adviser, told Trump supporters at the Capital One Arena in Washington.
Musk then slapped his right hand into his chest, fingers splayed, before shooting out his right arm on an upwards diagonal, fingers together and palm facing down.
Not your average random gesture.
Musk asked his audience to imagine American astronauts planting the flag on another planet, miming such actions and shouting: “Bam! Bam!”
“We own Mars, nyah nyah!” How very adult.
Social media users expressed shock at Musk’s gesture. Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University, said: “Historian of fascism here. It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too.”
Never mind. He was probably just stretching.
This is like a Philip K. Dick novel, with our reality suddenly turning into a parallel world where the Axis powers won in 1945.
Not to go full Coel here, but he’s just being a stupid edgelord. At least maybe Mike Pesca might stop fellating him for a bit.
BKiSA, even if so, it is a stupid juvenile thing to do. This administration is full of grown men caught in pre-pubescent ways of thinking (I don’t include the women in that, because I haven’t heard enough about them to be sure). We have the largest military in the world being run by people who think like high school freshmen. They also perceive those who do not admire them for their juvenile gestures to be surly old ladies who just don’t appreciate their humor and their brilliance. I know the type – I grew up with the type.
100% with you there. He’s got a decade yet I wouldn’t have considered doing similar since my sophomore year of highschool (if then).
iknklst: a class of men who are perpetually 13. “you ain’t the boss of me” pseudo anarchism to “ rolling coal” with biggg trux.
And now Trump has pardoned all the January the 6th rioters, including the violent ones. Here’s Rachel Maddow:
“ In authoritarian Hungary, Viktor Orban’s government pardoned a far right agitator who had set fire to the homes of Orban’s political rivals. In Turkey, Erdogan had pardoned the leader of a far right nationalist paramilitary group that mobilized on his behalf and engaged in street violence. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe pardoned hundreds of people who carried out election related violence on his behalf.
“Pinochet in Chile gave, and Fujimori in Peru. gave blanket amnesties to their security forces. If you’re on my side, the law doesn’t apply to you. Don’t even ask me about the SA in Germany. Don’t get me started.
“But this is day one. Unfolding pretty much the way we expected it to, and yes, this is novel in American history, but it is also knowable in world history. Because it’s the same stuff every other would be authoritarian leader does in every country that has had to contend with a leader like that.”
She should have said, “But this is ONLY day one.” No wonder Musk’s giving Nazi salutes.
I see that Musk Derangement Syndrome is spreading like covid. Come on people, get a grip. He just jumps around, making body movements, as excited as Li’l X.
Strange how the media never makes such interpretations of these folks.
Meanwhile, in a return to sanity — and presented here in the time-honoured tradition of trolling — here is Richard Dawkins giving his impressions of Musk.
I don’t think the Nazi epithet is right for Musk – I can’t see him believing in racial science, for instance. He has a notion of being the saviour of western civilisation rather than a promoter of Aryan supremacy. I’m all for Western civilisation myself, and I do wish the self-proclaimed saviours of it were more like eg Socrates and less like teenage boys.
As BKISA says his salute was a bit of edge lord foolery, part of the pattern of ignorant impulsiveness that has him calling someone who has displeased him a paedophile. He’s a kind of Caligula – he does what the impulse tells him to because there is no power that can constrain him.
And, also read this by Andrew Doyle.
To see how deranged the media is, note the sub-head to the USA Today piece: “… give what can most charitably be called a ‘fascist salute’ …”
Most charitably?? OK then, if that’s the most charitable interpretation, what’s the least charitable? Any answer to that?
Here’s Doyle: “Musk said to the audience, ‘my heart goes out to you’, which is why he struck his heart and mimed throwing it out to the crowd. He then turned and did it again, and the meaning is perfectly clear when the clip is seen in its entirety”.
Also: “So once more for the hard of thinking in the media: calling people Nazis doesn’t work anymore. It’s not only unethical, it virtually guarantees that the very people you don’t want to be in power will win their elections.”
Democrats and the Democrat-leaning media are continuing to act in the manner that led to multiple millions of moderate, centrist voters just wandering away.
Yes, yes, I get it, Andrew Doyle is Goebbels.
I see only one person here who is suffering from ‘Musk Derangement Syndrome’, and it is you, Coel. It is quite extraordinary to me how utterly infantile you get as soon as you start trying to defend your favourite person. You descend into what some European politician described Trump as doing with respect to Putin: behaving like twelve-year-old being introduced to the captain of the school football team. Grow up.
As expected, here’s our predictable dummy, Coel.
Let me remind you, Coel, that if, say, Justin Trudeau or some other left-wing government figure had (charitably speaking, inadvertently) sieg-heiled, you wouldn’t have hesitated to point out that the symbolism is, er, problematic to put it mildly.
The “derangement syndrome” runs both ways, Coel. But you’re just deranged enough to be oblivious to the other side of the knife.
Some hear “My heart goes out to you,” while others hear “go fuck yourselves.” He’s not a very self aware “savant” is he. The clip @8 shows Dawkins speaking about him as if he were a child — “Oh look how clever he is”… As if RD, despite his own limited talent, is some guru, and flawless judge of character. Um, no. He just wants to be included in more Lunches With the Self Impressed, because Dawkins and Musk certainly are that.
Maybe this gesture is from the video games for which he is the world champion.
@Artymorty:
Go ahead and give an actual example of me doing such a thing. Quote me.
KB @15 I always wondered why successful players of video games are seen as the smart ones, instead of the creators and programmers of them — or the employer of rocket scientists rather than the rocket scientists themselves. Or that fame or celebrity (or wealth in fact) are equated with intelligence at all. It’s bizarre. Maybe it’s Forrest Gump Syndrome — wasn’t he famous and wealthy too? A genius no doubt. At least Forrest wasn’t morally corrupt.
Jesus Coel @16, your link @7 showing people waving their hands out of context does just that!
@twilter 17 – It was very usual to ascribe great qualities of wisdom and virtue to hereditary monarchs until quite recently – not out of fear, but with the genuine belief that to be in such an exalted position must imply peculiar merit rather than an accident of birth.
Re equating fame or celebrity with intelligence – people get annoyed with Hollywood actors sounding off about politics. I used to myself, but now I don’t mind them, any more than a bloke in the pub sounding off. They want to gabble, but their gabbling happens to be amplified. When actors talk about acting and film-making they are worth listening to, just as the bloke in the pub might know a lot about football or his particular skills.
@twiliter:
No it doesn’t, since I was making no criticism of the people pictured, and would consider it petty and silly to do so. I was pointing out the selectivity of the media.
Because being a top player of some of these games requires an ability to assimilate nearly instantaneously a vast amount of information being continually presented to you by the game, and to be continually making near-instantaneous optimal decisions.
This does indeed correlate very highly with intelligence, in the same way that, say, being good at solving maths problems under time pressure does.
Coel: Arty said “point out the symbolism” and you did exactly that, whether you pointed out the pointing out or whatever, you in fact pointed it out. (Nuh Uh, by the way, doesn’t a refutation make.) The evidence is there.
I suggest, Coel, that you acquaint yourself with what actual and serious players of the games you talk about are saying about Musk’s claims – they are readily found on the internet. And back we are with your obsession about IQ, a common obsession. on the ridiculous right. Can you not think for yourself, and stop rehearsing tired tropes from the right-wing fever pits you frequent? What, incidentally, is your IQ, since you seem to value IQ scores so much? Come on, don’t be shy. It is also a fact that having high intelligence does not prevent people from embracing ridiculous, cultish ideas. Grow up, and stop blindly and childishly supposing that high intelligence necessarily results in the ideas that you entertain being correct.
I also wonder what you think about Musk’s fiddling with about algorithms on X to boost right-wing commentators and make it difficult for supposedly ‘left-wing’ commentators, and his banning of people who criticise him. How does this square with Musk’s & your protestations about ‘free speech’? It seems that neither Musk nor you care about free speech at all, unless it is the freedom to spread lies by people you share the same cultish views with, about cats and dogs and Haitians, for example – as well as a number of other things. No doubt you are in Musk’s camp about the martyrdom of ‘Tommy Robinson’. Or are you not?
@Tim:
Tim, if you want me to comment on this sort of claim, first present some actual evidence. Don’t believe every rumour you read on the internet.
After all, last week you were all-in on the rumour that “Adrian Dittmann” was a Musk sock-puppet account, weren’t you?
The usual evasive reply when Coel is put on the spot. Come on, Coel, address my questiions.
A couple of points: first, the Nazi salute doesn’t consist solely of the raised arm: that is merely the end point. The salute is the chest thump followed by the forceful thrust of the arm. That is what is being talked about here, so pictures of others with upraised arms are irrelevant, unless you can show them doing the whole gesture. Otherwise, it’s like showing a clip of someone saying “you” and claiming that it’s equivalent to “fuck you”.
Second, even if Musk was being naïve and awkward and didn’t realize how his gesture would be interpreted, Trump and his associates have long used Nazi and fascist dog whistles (“Stand back and stand by”; “Good people on both sides”; anti-Semitic tropes in campaign ads; need I go on?), so it’s not a stretch to think that his supporters will take Musk’s salute as a wink their way. So even if the intent wasn’t there, the effect certainly was.
I keep reading how calling people Nazis is part of what caused the Democrats to lose the election, and all I can say is WTF? Trump referred to the Biden administration as “Gestapo”. Other references to Democrats being fascists are legion. There are also some references where Republicans (including both Trump and Vance) called Democrats ‘fascists’.
So go ahead. Believe that the reason the election was lost by the Democrats had something to do with the unpleasant rhetoric. Yeah, I believe that. You want to sell me some swamp land in Arizona? Go ahead! I’m right there with you.
WaM @ 24 – But don’t most people think of the arm gesture as the Nazi salute? (Most people who are aware of it at all, that is.) The Basil Fawlty version, so to speak. I don’t think one really has to start with the chest-slap to make an apparent sieg heil. It can be a bad incorrect wrong sieg heil but still a sieg heil. It’s the intention that matters.
I’ve no idea what Musk thought he was doing and I hold no brief for him. His recent efforts to destabilise my country have made me savagely angry. But in the interest of historical accuracy, here is a clip of the original Nazi salute.
Some time ago I though that given the opportunity I would do a Hitler salute to someone who verbally attacked eg: Salman Rushdie for “The Satanic Verses”.
Now I doubt my actual intent would be received.
NightCrow – I don’t get your point. Musk’s salute resembles Hitler’s.
Ophelia,
I was thinking of the photos that Coel linked to in @7.
Hitler raises his right arm stiffly and holds it steadily in position, pointing forwards straight from the shoulder towards the crowd.
In the snippet of video shown by the Guardian, Musk puts his right hand more or less over his heart (0.05) before raising his arm and apparently punching the air in the direction of the crowd (0.06), following which he lowers it immediately. He then offers a very perfunctory salute to someone or something behind him, before swinging round to face the crowd and putting his hand over his heart again. If he is attempting a Nazi salute he is not doing it very well.
I hold no brief for Musk; his behaviour when he was in my country, Britain, was outrageous. He is a very unpleasant man and his wealth makes him dangerous. But I think labelling people like him Nazis can distract, can make it harder to see and analyse the actual detail of what is going on here and now.
A large number of right-wing groups and neo-Nazis got the message all right and were posting away on X & Telegram and, no doubt, other platforms. But no doubt this can all be readily explained away by Coel
Senator Chris Murphy (D) Connecticut asking questions of Elise Stefanik quotes the following:
From a right-wing political commentator on X (whose name I couldn’t catch):
“Holy crap! Did Elon Musk just Heil Hitler the Trump inauguration rally? This is incredible! We are so back!”
The founder of the Christian Nationalist social platform GAB ‘amplified the visual’ and wrote:
“Incredible things are happening!”
The Proud Boys chapter in Ohio posted the clip with this text:
“Heil Trump!”
A White Lives Matter posted this in connexion with the clip:
“Thanks for hearing us, Elon. The white flame will rise again!”
Murphy said that there a great many more such responses all over the internet. Here’s the video in which a clip of Murphy asking questions of Stefanik appears:
https://youtu.be/y9uSLoxTtwI?si=sTJPsXz7dLiGO7WC
If you are offering your heart to the crowd in a nicely sentimental way, you do it gently with your palm upwards, and you do not make an extraordinarily violent gesture with your palm downwards as Musk does, and pull the corners of your mouth down to appear threatening.. No, we cannot know definitely what Musk intended by his posturing, but the gesture certainly came across as violent and threatening, and the far right (who might be thought to be more savvy in that connexion) certainly recognised it.
@Tim:
They are like you Tim, they believe what it suits them to believe. It suits them to believe that Musk’s intent was indeed a neo-Nazi signal, so they believe it.
It suits you to believe the worst about Musk, so you credulously buy in to various conspiracy theories about him (that he is rigging Twitter, that he uses sock-puppet accounts, that he is signalling to neo-Nazis).
I think you should ask yourself, Coel, what it suits you to believe. If you read my comment very, very carefully, you will find that nowhere do I suggest that Musk was signalling to neo-Nazis. I specifically say that we (and that includes you) do not know what Musk’s intentions were in doing what he did, but because of the nature of his gesture, neo-Nazis greeted it with delight.
By the way, since we are talking about right-wing thugs, of whom you, too, now appear to disapprove, may I remind you that you haven’t addressed the question I asked you (Comment 21, if you would care to scroll back) about whether or not you are in Musk’s camp regarding Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon, or, if you prefer his favoured moniker, ’Tommy Robinson’. Would you like to answer it now?
I hope you are getting down to reading to that history of post-independence Haiti. It is enlightening to read some actual history instead of relying on stale and simple-minded prejudices found on the internet, or wherever you get your prejudices from.
An interesting coincidence. Again, it may not be intentional–Musk may simply be acting naively–but one could perhaps see how his gesture would be interpreted as a Nazi salute. (And honestly, throwing his heart out? Who does that?)
@Tim:
Oh yes you did Tim. Here it is:
“A large number of right-wing groups and neo-Nazis got the message all right …”
That phrasing (“got the message”) implies a deliberate communication from one person aimed at another person or group. Your sentence does indeed amount to you saying that Musk was signalling to neo-Nazis.
If all you meant is that neo-Nazi groups interpreted the gesture that way, then you should have said that.
Now if you want to plead that you’re simply a sufficiently sloppy writer that you don’t realise the connotations of what you say, then ok.
And if, at any point, you actually want a discussion of the history of Haiti then sure, I’m game, name the place and time (though I don’t see what it has to do with this thread).
What a Maroon:
“My heart goes out to you,” is a fairly common expression and motif, after all. (And even if it weren’t, who does anything the first time?) It’s not like you have to be pro-Nazi or antisemitic to not see this as saluting the Führer.
NiV,
I was referring to the gesture, not the saying. That’s not a gesture I’ve ever seen with the meaning “My heart goes out to you”; it is a gesture that’s used to say “Heil Hitler!” In fact, it’s the exact same gesture, as the link I provided shows.
Now of course it’s possible that Musk didn’t mean it that way in the moment, but if that’s the case, he should’ve been mortified that people (including actual Nazis) interpreted it as such. And if he was mortified, the proper response should’ve been something along the lines of “I can see how people interpreted it that way, but that wasn’t what I meant.”
Try continuing on to the last sentence, Coel. There is more than one sentence in what I wrote.
And, now, what about Stephen Christopher Yaxley-Lennon?
WaM:
As someone who has often been supposed to be on the autism spectrum, I might be completely out there, but I wouldn’t be mortified. I’d be irritated, annoyed, frustrated and perhaps even infuriated, but certainly nowhere near embarrassed, ashamed, or humiliated.
Especially if my ego were as inflated and fragile as Elon’s.
From the Meidas Touch Bulletin:
‘Elon Musk’s daughter Vivian responded to his denials that he did a Nazi salute twice at the Trump event: “I’m just gonna say let’s call a spade a fucking spade. Especially if there were two spades done in succession based on the reaction of the first spade. Fuck spades.”’
His trans “daughter” that is.
That’s some high class, rarefied irony right there. Just remember that calling a spade a spade when it identifies as a heart is literal violence.