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Comment by WalterBright

4 days ago

If he meant it to be a nazi salute, why did he do it in conjunction with saying "I give my heart to you"?

Currently on TV is a WW2 documentary narrated by Tom Hanks. It's pretty good, with significant coverage of nazis. I recommend watching it. I'm a bit of a history wonk, and have read extensively about WW2. I'm afraid I don't see any parallels between the nazis and Musk.

And responding to the backlash by posting Nazi-related puns seems like a bad way of clearing your name or trying to distance yourself from the accusation.

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    • "Doesn't look like anything to me."

      Congrats, you baited me into watching the video again. Definitely a nazi salute. Twice. Crisp enough to identify as a nazi salute even if the context hadn't been a far-right industrialist celebrating a far-right victory. But that was the context, giving us two layers of unambiguity.

He's done "I give my heart to you" on video, too, and it looks nothing like the nazi salute that he clearly did at the inauguration, twice, in celebration of the victory of far-right populist politics in the USA.

The rhetorical parallels between Musk, his affiliates, and the nazis should be clear to anyone with remedial knowledge of history, let alone someone who calls themselves a wonk: scapegoating racial outgroups isn't a subtle strategy and Musk's pursuit of the strategy is not subtle.

WW2 is the end of nazi politics, not the beginning. In the unlikely case that you missed the parallels in good faith, I recommend the Richard Evans books to learn about the beginning and middle of the nazi movement.

  • That's because he was in a manic moment, and all his emotions and physical movements were exaggerated... This wasn't a calm investor presentation.

> If he meant it to be a nazi salute, why did he do it in conjunction with saying "I give my heart to you"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Schrodingers...

Here's what Musk actually does when he intends that gesture: https://www.reddit.com/r/centrist/comments/1i8ajx0/video_of_...

And here's what this one looked like: https://www.reddit.com/r/gifs/comments/1i6par1/elon_musk_vs_...

Go on - would you give the latter link's "my heart goes out to you" gesture publicly at, say, work, or outside a synagogue?