Theoretically, yes, but who is going to make that distinction, if somebody was collaborating to save their own arse, or out of conviction?
After WWII, there was no shortage of former Nazis who said they were only following orders, and of course they were against the regime from the word go, and only went along with it because they had no choice.
What's worrying now in the early stages of Trump 2.0 is that all the Tech Bros and media conglomerates are willfully and voluntarily cosying up to Trump, in a way that is unprecedented and has the potential to completely undermine political dissent. All Musk and Zuckerberg have to do is tweak their algorithms so that liberal and left-wing perspectives are duly suppressed on facebook and X. And Jeff Bezos has already shown what his ownership of the Washington Post means for political bias and free speech. With that much power in the hands of so few, who all lean towards Trump, you practically don't even need any formal Gleichschaltung anymore like under the Nazis. They're willfully doing it themselves. Which may just seem unfortunate for now, but if Trump really goes off the deep end and turns the U.S. into an autocracy, then what do we do.
>Austria's Greens demand entry ban for Elon Musk over suspected Nazi salute
>Austria’s Green Party has called for Elon Musk to be banned from entering the country, accusing the billionaire of making a suspected Nazi salute during Donald Trump’s inauguration.
>During US President Trump’s inauguration, Musk was seen raising his right arm twice in a gesture that some interpreted as a Nazi salute. The incident has caused outrage, particularly in Austria, where sensitivity to Nazi symbols is exceptionally high due to its historical context.
>>100977 >Elon supposed nazi alute
I think it was just a spergy thing he intended as a triumphant gesture like a fist pump, semi-realised it might look dodgey and tried to redirect it to the flag (patriotism), then overcorrects signalling his hand is firmly at his chest, not raised high.
If you really want to analyse the gesture, you can see he's casting something from the heart rather than reaching up to an authority - his arm movement is horizontal (literally over the horizon, like a rocket), not vertical. You can even see in his eye the acknowledgement of a mistake, when he looks to his advisor(s).
Ofcourse the press is going pounce on anything they can, just how Kamala is recieving the same treatment for a similarly unfortunate screengrab.
Mental health awareness, acceptance for odd behaviours and all that.
Bollocks. The AfD supporting edgy memer who did the same gesture twice before referencing securing the future of civilisation just did it by accident. You know you're lying, we know you're lying, why bother at this point?
>>100981 >You know you're lying, we know you're lying, why bother at this point?
Mate, I don't give a fuck about it either way. Just throwing in my no-context opinion. On the look of things this is as nazi-adjacent as enthusiastically hailing a bus.
Are the ADL lying? If so, why would the world's foremost NGO for combating antisemitism lie to protect a man who they have previously accused of antisemitism?
>>100981 It’s always nice to assume the best about people, but…
>>100980 I am confident he did it on purpose. I don’t think he’s a Nazi; he just has that sort of personality where he really loves triggering the libs and he knows he’s powerful enough to go full 4chan in public. Everything we see of him now matches that assertion, so I see no reason to believe this is any different. He did the Nazi salute on purpose, but he did so ironically, for bantz. That “I am giving my heart to you” comment, or whatever he said, makes me think he planned it, because that’s definitely a lie (when you mime giving someone something, you universally hold your palm facing upwards) and I don’t think he could make up that lie on the spot.
Ultimately, it's irrelevant why he did it. What matters is that we have a platoon strength group from UKSF to intercept and eliminate Musk at the soonest opportunity.
>>100974 Not that anon, but the difference is a concern for political analysts and, well, most other ordinary people who want to know the ways they're likely to fuck them.
Also, everyone, I have a solution:
1. Let's just agree that he is, at least, a cunt that did something cunty, which is obvious.
2. We laugh at how pathetically edgy he is.
3. We laugh when he inevitably cries about being called a Nazi. He deserves it even if he isn't one because he made people think he was.
>>100990 Well then, okay, you still have #2. #3 is now that he's an idiot who failed to realise the glaring obvious, and take the piss out of him accordingly
The question still remains why Musk saw the need to use a hand gesture whose significance and meaning even the spergiest sperg on Earth can't say they've got no clue about. There are loads of ways you can express excitement, however undue that excitement is, but this shouldn't be it, ever.
For some weird reason, it kind of reminded me of that scene from The Wall where Bob Geldof is a fascist.
Okay okay so someone just tell me straight. Did he actually deliberately intentionally do a Hitler salute (regardless what guise of being edgy and subversive he thought it was), or was he just raising his arm in a way that can be interpreted as resembling a Hitler salute if you grab the screenshot at just the right moment?
Because I don't find it out of character at all that he would, but at the same time it's not like the internet doesn't have form for just being completely hysterical about this kind of thing. And of course I am completely unwilling to do any research of my own on this matter, so I would like you three to tell me.
>>100995 While we can't perfectly divine anyone's internal processes, he made the motions of a full Nazi salute, twice. It's categorically not just a momentary screenshot thing.
It does look quite sieg heilish. Musk says that he was gesturing that his heart goes out to the audience; that claim is made somewhat more credible by the fact that he said "my heart goes out to you" immediately after making the gesture. Frankly, I think it's a bit daft to spend days analysing the body language of a ketamine-addled autistic man who moves like a malfunctioning robot.
>>100996 Lke I said above, he deserves the backlash, but as this dood says >>100997 it would be better if it was less obsessive. I think mockery towards Elon channeling that anger is better. Jeering at him and calling him a fucktard would be funny. Doing a Basil Fawlty salute with a mustache finger and a raspberry would be funny - hell, the Tommies did that to German soldiers captured in the War, at least according to Milligan. Especially as, to continue the theme, Elon looks like Captain Scarlet with Downs.
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No. 100999Anonymous 24th January 2025 Friday 11:26 am100999I am the sage of objectivity, come in your thyme of need.
We categorically cannot know, only he knows his intention. However, we *do* know the following, and I think it's damning enough to be taken seriously.
Elon - as per the link at the bottom of this post - has historically made at least one 'Heart goes out to you' gesture before, only this time forming an actual heart with his hands, placing it to his chest, and then moving both arms outwards as he drops the shape. [1]
There's a fraction of a chance that he doesn't know what a Nazi salute looks like, but it's not worth consideration and for the purpose of this argument, his knowledge of the gesture is taken as fact and he perfectly replicates the same motion as Hitler. [2]
Elon is aware of the associations of the gesture he made, and the extreme right/Nazi movement. He has made absolutely no attempt, despite knowing the association between his gesture and the movement. He has also spoken explicitly in favour of the AFD, Germany's far right party who have a history of antisemitism and holocaust denial, and links with Nazism. [3]
I've included links for everything below. If anyone takes a look at all this and still believes this man is not aligning himself with Nazism, then either there is something deeply wrong with my perception of reality, or that person is a fucking moron.
>That claim is made somewhat more credible by the fact that he said "my heart goes out to you" immediately after making the gesture.
What he actually does is make the gesture twice, and then put his hand on his heart and say "My heart goes out to you". There's arguably a separation there, but I wouldn't offer it as evidence considering how it's very possibly an attempt at plausible deniability.
I know that Orwell quote is doing the rounds right now, but...he knows exactly what he did, and he did it on purpose. Whether it was to see if he could get away with it, to court right ring support, or to ascertain the direction in which a man went who is roughly as tall as my upper lip, it doesn't matter - what matters is his reaction now, and it's utterly damning.
He doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, he's proven that.
>UK group projects ‘Heil Tesla’ and Elon Musk’s hand gesture onto German factory
>Led By Donkeys teamed up with German activist group Center for Political Beauty to beam the hand gesture onto a Tesla building in Germany.
Mirth.
Also, German authorities are now investigating the incident at the factory on suspicion of "displaying unconstitutional symbols," which is a felony according to the German Penal Code, with the relevant sections expressly stating their applicability to Nazi symbols. If it tracks, then that means Germany will officially recognise Musk's salute as a Nazi gesture.
There's a bit more legalese to it. German authorities are arguing that the gesture has been taken out of its original context and put into an obvious National Socialist context, not least because of the word "Heil" appearing next to it, which is what their Penal Code wants to prevent.
Even if they conclude that this violates their sections against displaying illegal symbols, then that doesn't necessarily mean that it's illegal also in its original context.
It's a bit like showing a picture of a swastika as part of Hindu religious imagery, where it was used quite innocently as a symbol of luck and good fortune for centuries. You can probably do that with impunity even under modern German law, but as soon as connotations with Nazism can't be denied from the viewpoint of the average, reasonable observer, then it becomes a felony.
It will probably still do damage to Musk, because what's going to stick is that Germany have branded Musk's salute as a Nazi gesture. And it's not like the Germans can't speak with any authority on the subject.
>>101000 That's great but it also means a group taking the piss out of Elon for his stupidity will be the ones getting in the neck and not him. Because typical police.
Well I mean in complete fairness, it wasn't Musk that chose to project his Nazi salute onto the side of a building in Germany. He did a Nazi salute in a country where it's not illegal to do a Nazi salute. I don't really see how he is legally culpable for this.
I think that is once again giving him too much credit. If he were fully aware what fascism even is, maybe he would qualify as one, but really I just think he is a bellend with a great deal more money than sense. He's quite literally what happens when the average 00's era /b/tard becomes the world's "richest" man.
>>101011 Aware or not, I fully concur with otherlad that he's still a fascist. Plenty of folk are too daft to fully explain their own politics, but that doesn't change them being a Tory, a libertarian or a social democrat. This rule still applies to a burgeoning Hitlerite who's richer than King Midas.
>>101012 Yeah, this is it. One of my mates pointed out that he's certainly the type to have done something like this exclusively to 'troll the libs', and I agree, but then if you're the type to throw those salutes to piss off the libs, then you're aligning yourself with Nazism to piss off the libs, then you're aligning yourself with Nazism.
It sounds a bit simple and syllogistic but feels correct. That's basically it, isn't it?
Likewise, there's much debate if Donald Trump is a fascist, there certainly was that debate during his first term and its aftermath, and now that he's back and it's pretty much shaping up to be the old Trump shithow on absolute steroids, it's getting increasingly hard to argue that he isn't a fascist. If you ask Trump himself if he believes he's a fascist, he'll tell you he's the furthest from, and maybe even accuse Democrats of fascism. But if you look at his actions and not his words, then I dare you to make a convincing argument that he really isn't.
And I don't buy that Musk is too spergy or too uneducated about 20th century history to be oblivious to the fact that he's aligning himself with fascism. I don't buy it for one second.
Meanwhile, Musk's antics have started hurting Tesla sales in the EU, and in Germany in particular, where companies no longer buy them as fleet vehicles because they are worried that Musk's recent reputation will damage their own brand.
>>101009 It's not about him being guilty of doing a Nazi salute in Germany; it's just about putting the German government in a position where they have to decide whether or not it was a real Nazi salute. If Led By Donkeys get in trouble for what they did, then they will defend themselves by saying it wasn't a Nazi salute. If the German authorities don't buy that, then they are implicitly saying it was a Nazi salute. This will have some PR repercussions for Mr Musk, inevitably, and it might also affect whether or not he is allowed to travel to Germany in future, although I'm not sure about that.
This is where I always come unstuck on Trump, I start reading a post like this and I'm fully on your side but when you say something like this I'm like... Hang, what actually did he do? What actions has he carried out? What specific things are you referring to here?
To me the biggest thing about Trump, both regarding his fans and his critics, is that as far as I can tell he is entirely all talk and no action. He had a very uneventful presidency, and most of it was entirely overshadowed by that little virus thing. So I am asking in complete earnest here, what are these actions you speak of?
As previously discussed, they fucked that up by putting "heil" on the projection. You can legitimately argue that his gesture was ambiguous, but the caption they chose to attach to it removes all ambiguity.
Anyway, nothing ever happens. In four years time, America will basically be the same as it is now, except there'll be a load of Republicans having a meltdown about how the newly-elected Democrat president is literally Chairman Mao. The deep state is real and it doesn't give a fuck about who's in the Oval Office, because it's busy running a superpower.
And what you call an "uneventful" first term saw the death of the Iran nuclear deal for no good reason, the reigniting of a hostile diplomatic stance with Cuba, another four years of inaction on climate change and a conservative majority on the US Supreme Court. And that's just off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more.
> This will have some PR repercussions for Mr Musk, inevitably, and it might also affect whether or not he is allowed to travel to Germany in future, although I'm not sure about that.
The problem is that unlike in the U.S., where foreign election intereference is a federal crime and where they take that sort of thing very seriously, to the point of banning people from entry into the country or deporting them, it's not illegal per se in the EU or in Germany.
Musk has already dipped his toes into that kind of water in the UK but also much more outrageously in Germany, where he has had an op-ed published in their biggest tabloid endorsing the right-wing AfD in the upcoming general elections, as well as interviewing AfD head Alice Weidel live on X, and just today speaking via video link to a crowd of 4,500 AfD supporters at a rally.
Musk will probably get away with these endorsements because, again, they are not technically illegal. But that's not because nobody thinks they shouldn't be, but because nobody has really broken that taboo before. Nobody saw a need for such a law because there was always a tacit agreement that you don't meddle with other countries' elections. At least not in such a glaring way.
I could see Musk's actions leading to similar laws against foreign election interference in the UK and Germany in the near future like the ones that already exist in the U.S., but for now, unfortunately, he's not doing anything illegal.
We've yet to see how any of that will play out, but this is pretty much my point- The Guardian (and their transatlantic liberal cousins WaPo, NYT etc) all had exactly the same kind of articles in 2016, and what happened to all of it? If any of it really made much of a difference you'd be able to remember more than just these examples.
>death of the Iran nuclear deal for no good reason
That's the one really meaningful thing I could think of, so I'll give you that.
>the reigniting of a hostile diplomatic stance with Cuba
Oh no.
>another four years of inaction on climate change
As opposed to...? Seriously.
>conservative majority on the US Supreme Court
I guess? I don't know enough about all of that.
In broader terms I feel like Trump alarmism is daft for the same reason it's stupid when a Democrat wins and all the conservatives are calling them a godless commie who will put trans hormones in the drinking water or whatever. After 8 years and being one of the most celebrated presidents ever, what did Obama achieve? That shitty half baked healthcare thing? The reality is America is too much of a lumbering autocratic oligarchy controlled by the interests of various powerful super-lobbies, and they get their way come what may. It almost appears, at times, as if the fact he is doing things at all is the very cause for alarm.
If Trump turns out any different this time then fair play, but I really doubt it. So far as I can see he's just going to play the heel for a lot of "bad" decisions the US has seen in its self interest for a while anyway, such as dumping Ukraine to focus on keeping Taiwan out of China's hands.
At least we didn't have to go into that whole January 6th kerfuffle anyway.
>>101024 >conservative majority on the US Supreme Court
>I guess? I don't know enough about all of that.
Luckily, strangers on imageboards really enjoy it when we encounter someone who doesn't already know all the exact same facts that we do. So buckle in: in America, they occasionally get court cases which are challenged as being unconstitutional. Because Americans are so tumescently horny for the Constitution at all times, when a big challenge comes along, the approach to such a challenge is to go back and reread the Constitution to try and guess what the Founding Fathers would have said about the current case if they were alive today. It's a mental way of doing things, but that's not important right now. The people who try to interpret what George Washington would think about abortion, or whatever, are the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court is made up of Diana Ross and the nine most prestigious and best judges in the country. Those judges are hand-picked by whoever is president at the time, and it's a lifetime appointment - if you're a Supreme Court judge, you're there till you're dead. So it's a big deal when one of these judges dies, because Republican presidents will nominate people who interpret the law in a Republican way, and Democrat presidents will nominate Democratic-leaning judges. The Supreme Court used to have a fair(ish) balance between the two parties, so their rulings wouldn't be too partisan. But a couple of judges died and got replaced during Donald Trump's first presidency, so now things are skewed towards the Republicans in quite an obvious way.
The most notable case they had to deal with under Trump I was the abortion law: back in the 1970s, a court case called Roe vs Wade went all the way to the Supreme Court, and they ruled at the time that a woman's right to an abortion was more important than an unborn foetus's right to not be killed before it could grow into a baby, be born, and grow up into a fresh new American voter. But with the conservative-leaning Republican majority of Supreme Court judges, somebody challenged that ruling, and the judges had to look at it again. By pure coincidence, the judges picked by the party of pro-choicers all decided that actually, each individual state should have the right to decide whether or not abortion is legal in that state, meaning states could now ban abortion if they wanted to.
So abortion didn't get fully banned, but if you're a poor teenager in a hillbilly family and you get pregnant, you probably won't be able to sneak off to your local doctor for an abortion any more. And the judges who decided to take that right away from American citizens will be there until they die, and they outnumber the lefties, so Americans are now looking at literal decades of every law being re-examined and made more conservative whenever possible. There are ways to fix this (for example, Joe Biden could have said that nine judges isn't enough and he wanted there to be a couple more, that he would obviously choose, and of course they would be ones who stick up for Democrat ideals), but it would be very blatant and unpopular if anyone did that.
And I think that is absolutely everything I know about the US Supreme Court. Oh, and one of Trump's nominees was doubly controversial because he was a sex pest or a drug addict or something like that.
If you don't think the US president intimating war on a European country and member of NATO for refusing to simply hand over 836,330 square miles of territory for the asking is a big deal, what exactly do you think would be concerning?
That's not the point, the point is if it makes any difference that it's Trump or if it would still have happened under Kamala. Clearly America lost its appetite for Ukraine a long time ago.
>the point is if it makes any difference that it's Trump or if it would still have happened under Kamala
Trump attempted to buy Greenland in his first term, neither Biden nor Kamala did or suggested they wanted any such thing so your equivocating seems totally unfounded.
The best rule-of-thumb I've heard about Trump is that you should take him seriously but not literally.
I don't believe for a second that he wants to invade Greenland, but I do think he is very serious about reshaping the balance of power in the North Atlantic, partly because of Russia but also because of the long-term strategic implications of the opening of the Northwest Passage. It's inextricably linked with Trump's previous threats against Panama, but most of the press don't seem to have twigged. The fact that Denmark have announced a massive increase in their defence spending is an immediate win, considering that he has long been pressuring other NATO members to increase their spending and stop relying on the US.
I'm sure that Trump has been told that there's no way in a million years that Egypt and Jordan will take loads of forcibly displaced Gazans, but that's not the point of what he's saying. He has already told Netanyahu "get the ceasefire done or else", which clearly worked. He's now telling the Gazans "wind your neck in and play nice with the Israelis or else", which is a bigger ask but might plausibly work. He has certainly lit a fire under the Egyptians, who have a key strategic role.
>>101038 Question to everyone: why is it illegal in our fair Isle to throw a Nazi salute in front of our PM when all it's for is to congratulate him on working with Nazis in the White House?
Obviously I'm joking but someone with a free speech bent should ask Kier that and it would be funny to watch his face.
