It's also the Roman salute, which predates nazis and fascists.
And you gotta admit, it's a powerful gesture.
Also, he runs a company that makes spaceships. Which is pretty awsome.
Think about that while you work your shitty 9-to-5
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts, whether from Mastodon, tumblr, ~~Twitter~~ X, KBin, Threads or elsewhere.
Created as an evolution of White People Twitter and other tweet-capture subreddits.
Rules:
Related communities:
He's basically an edge lord 4-channer, Nazi saluting to: "own the libs" is sort of on brand.
I don't think he's a dyed in the wool Führer-lover. I do think he's a hyper insecure, spoiled, man-child with enough ties to the far right to idolize "anti-social behavior" and think he's the hottest shit ever to pull off such a "based" stunt.
A poser; doing loser shit opening the door for someone/something much worse because his idiot brain thinks he's being cute.
You're not wrong, a lot of these chuds, especially the tech bros, are obviously deeply insecure and have figured out they can't buy authenticity and coolness with money or power. That's where that brittle and mean bitterness they all have about other people living as they choose comes from. But it goes deeper than just emulating edgelords for kicks and covering up for their self-esteem issues.
Doing it and avoiding any tangible punishment or long term fallout demonstrates what a powerful, untouchable person he is to the boot-licking right wing base. The whole goal is to build an in group of followers that is protected with power and privilege (which ensures their loyalty) and this is a signal to them that he can do just that.
It's also a demonstration of unity in having a common enemy, and being willing to do anything to "win". Wether it's politics or a culture war, being willing to escalate is seen as a marker of strength. It's the only kind of political and social interaction they can understand.
You're right that he's likely not a hard core admirer of Hitler. It's not about a particular political standpoint, it's about having the power to do whatever he wants and making sure people know it.
I don’t think he’s a dyed in the wool Führer-lover.
No, of course not. He's a dyed-in-the-wool Afrikkkaner. It's a Dutch/English strain of Fascism far more in line with the American brand than the German/Nordic Central European brand.
A poser; doing loser shit opening the door for someone/something much worse because his idiot brain thinks he’s being cute.
A professional sycophant and corrupt corporate hack who has made a cool trillion selling exploding cars, crashing spaceships, and non-existent subway systems. He's anything but a loser, as he's perfectly hacked the modern capitalist system.
The Nazi pastiche he's adopted is intended to keep those super-sized government contracts and cheap private loans coming. Same reason he pays teams of pro-gamers to run his video game accounts and throws the biggest, most debauched orgies in Silicon Valley or Austin, TX. Same reason he nearly killed himself and Peter Thiel doing burnouts in a brand new McLauren.
TrueAnon Podcast has a great three-part series "The Lamest Show On Earth" that takes a deep dive into Musk's background. Does a great job of laying out who this guy is and how he's successfully grifted his way to the pinnacle of the western business ziggurat. The most that can be said of him is that he loves to dominate other people. The explicit flavor of fascism is secondary.
You basically just described every fascist/Nazi ever while arguing that he's not really a Nazi just "edgy." Let's not make this same mistake again, hyper insecure spoiled man-children with enough ties to the far right to idolize anti-social behavior ARE NAZIS.
I'm starting to think that doing enough Ketamine to take down a racehorse just before giving a speech to the entire world's media, was probably not a good idea...
Being a Nazi doesn't help either.
It’s not a full on Nazi salute as the words „Heil“, „Heil Hitler“, or „Sieg Heil“ aren’t used. However, it is a full on salute in its tradition. A right wing oligarch holding a victory speech espousing conservative revolution and a glorious future are in the vein of the fascism of old.
Trumpism doesn’t need to even express itself as fully fascist. The popular support, the support of the tycoons of industry, institutional acquiescence, lack of organized resistance, means he doesn’t need to go full authoritarian.
The ideological flexibility of Trumpism is enormous. Allegiance to Trump and MAGA is pretty much it. The rest of the ideology is dynamically formed by sycophants looking for Trump‘s favor. The post ironic attitude means immunity to value based criticism.
Elon Musk is a mix of minister for propaganda and court jester at the same time.
I know I won't change your mind by disagreeing with you regarding the nazi salute. But I want to say that I am very grossed out by all the apologists defending him, even just a little bit.
Just remember the quote, for evil men to succeed, good men just have to do nothing
The apathetic centrist majority who think political illiteracy is the smart and sensible position are the biggest asset to fascism.