i think he allowed himself to do it as part of his edgelord persona, trying to trigger people on purpose. the motion is intentional as his arm shoots straight out to the side as opposed to being directed to the center of the crowd or sweeping across the crowd as if to spread his “heart” as it were.

the autism defense is one that i think is being used to try to checkmate the left on the subject, as they are the most offended by the gesture but also more likely to be sensitive to neurodivergent persons and potentially less likely to criticize their actions.

in short, i believe he intended the gesture as interpreted, just not as a genuine expression of his personal beliefs. that being said, i think hes a white supremacist fascist, but i dont think he thinks hes a white supremacist fascist.

Read the Led by Donkeys tweet about all the shit he’s been up to recently in Europe. He’s gone full retard for white supremacists.

There was this period before WWII when stuff started happening to reduce the rights of minorities, but they weren’t being killed blatantly. Is this where we are?

Yes, precisely. And it was undoubtedly a Nazi salute.

https://i.imgur.com/wpqNYi6.mp4

You tell me

The dudes family got rich using African slaves to dig diamonds out of the dirt. Oppression and dehumanization is in his blood. The only way to cure that is to let the blood out

Oh yeah, there’s definitely a possibility. It’s just that possibility is very very small.

I don’t think so. My case:

• Just at the level of fuckin eyeballing it, the comparisons to how Hitler did it to how Musk did it are pretty damning.

• I asked Germans on Lemmy if Musk would’ve gotten fined if he was anyone else and had done this at an event in Germany, the answer was a confident yes. I expect Germans know it when they see it, and know how not to fall foul of the law, so that’s another good test that says Musk knew what he was doing.

• Last and most damning is when you consider the context of the man himself. Musk has been directly sponsoring and promoting not just right wing but reactionary parties like AfD, MAGA, and whatever Nigel Farage’s fucking circus is called for years. You can also see this in how Twitter’s content is managed. The dude has been putting in lots of very visible work boosting Nazi messaging and actual Nazi politicians/parties. Is it REALLY such a shock that he would, ahem, stop hiding his power level in such a public way after a win like the 2024 election? I don’t think so, and especially not if you accept that Musk believes there’s not going to be another meaningful election. I don’t think the other oligarchs think so either, that’s why they’ve been so quick to fall in line and pay their tribute.

It’s time to face the music. Chat, we might be cooked.

The fact that this is even a conversation is just insane to me…

Musk isn’t someone who failed elementary school, he is the richest man on the world and the US secretary for government efficiency. He definitely knows what’s a Nazi salute, and what isn’t.

We’re not in the context of a movie, a theatre play, a larp, or even a costume party where it would have been from OK to “stupid” but in the context of a political speech.

So it’s definitely a nazi salute.

If he had rehearsed his script, everyone would’ve pointed out the issue

We’re talking about a man who has obviously fascist politics. Pretty much anyone knows not to do a nazi salute in front of millions of people, and he did it twice. Besides, if it somehow were an accident, he’d have immediately apologised.

People win elections all the time. People celebrate elections all the time. The last time somebody taking power did a gesture that looked like this was probably in Germany, 1933. This is no coincidence.

It doesn’t matter.

It REALLY doesn’t matter.

If he was doing a Nazi salute, the consequences are obvious. If he was doing something “like” a Nazi salute but can plausibly deny it, the result is exactly the same; and that means that the intent is the same, even if it is proven (magically!) that it wasn’t a Nazi salute.

This is the result:

The Nazis of the world all saw it, and took it as a sign of unity. Nothing else matters.

Now Musk may or not may be autistic, but I know several autistic people (plus one with Tourette Syndrome, long ago) and you know what? Not a single one of them has done anything like a Nazi salute.

“Heil Hitler” as a phrase and a salute is fairly unique: It is something that is absolutely burned into the memory of most of humanity, regardless of language, culture, or society. Nobody with Musk’s worldly knowledge and experience would accidentally do something that close to a Nazi salute. Hell, an eight year old from Latvia wouldn’t accidentally do something like that. The knowledge and the taboo are absolutely burned into our collective consciousness.

There is absolutely zero chance whatsoever that Musk didn’t know what he was doing.

And even if that’s true, it honestly doesn’t matter.

If it was an accident, he’d probably have apologized by now. But it really doesn’t matter either way. It’s too late now, he’s given license to the far right to see it as the endorsement they want.

There is always a possibility that he did not intend it to be a Hitler salute, but that possibility is not very plausible, because…he pretty much did a Hitler salute and the odds of him being ignorant of that fact are extremely low.