Q: When Is A Nazi Salute Not A Nazi Salute? A: Almost Never! Thanks, That's My TED Talk
Funny, Germans know a Nazi salute when they see one. (Don't mention the war!)
You’ve undoubtedly seen Elon Musk throwing a Roman, Bellamy, or Sieg Heil salute or similar arm gesture, twice, at Donald Trump’s big inaugural rally in DC Monday.
Here’s video, showing the Skipping Dipshit doing the thing, then turning around and doing it again so everyone could see. Kudos to the Telegraph video people for including not just the moment itself but also following it with the context before and after. (No, none of the context made it OK.)
Musk called Trump’s 2024 election win, which he financed, “a fork in the road for civilization,” then added, “I just want to say thank you for making it happen — thank you.” We go to The New York Times for its play-by-play of the action:
The billionaire then grunted and placed his hand to his heart before extending his arm out above his head with his palm facing down. After he turned around, he repeated the motion to those behind him.
Look, when someone natters on about saving “civilization” and throws a Nazi salute, it’s fairly safe to assume it’s Nazi nattering. When someone can’t bring themselves to call a Nazi salute a Nazi salute, it’s fairly safe to assume they work for The New York Times.
Musk followed the allegedly ambiguous gesture by saying, “My heart goes out to you,” so maybe that is simply how people demonstrate that they are delivering their hearts to their audiences, you see. Then he added (but not in the clip above), “It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured. We’re going to have safe cities, secure borders, sensible spending, basic stuff and we’re going to take DOGE to Mars.”
Which once more demonstrates 1) that weird fixation with “civilization” being at risk, and 2) for a purported geek, the man knows zilch about nerd culture. In Cowboy Bebop, it’s Cats on Mars, you dope.
For a headline, the Gray Lady shrugged, conceding the point to the New York Times Pitchbot account, and went with “Elon Musk Ignites Online Speculation Over the Meaning of a Hand Gesture.”
Jesus Christ doing donuts on your lawn in a newly leased Kia EV6, “a hand gesture” is just sad. Did he give a Nazi salute, flip the bird, or do the “obscene” Antonin Scalia chin-flick that only very old nerds still remember? (The Scalia nontroversy, not the gesture itself.)
Come on. There’s trying to avoid getting sued, and then there’s pretending that both you and your readers are innocent baby ducks encountering the great big confusing world for the first time. Cut that out, and if you’re gonna hedge, at least be clear what you’re freaking hedging about!
Other outlets also carefully waffled, stepping carefully lest they upset the litigious billionaire manbaby. Was it a Nazi salute, a “Nazi salute,” a “seeming Nazi salute,” a “Nazi-style salute”? Or as the Irish Star initially put it, did he appear to “accidentally give a Hitler salute inauguration blunder”? (That version is no longer online; the tabloid now has the hed “Elon Musk ‘makes Nazi salute’ three times during inauguration speech.”)
Musk’s little grunt and grimace looked awfully familiar to several people on the internets, who pointed out that it was a nearly exact copy of the Hitler salute given by a neo-Nazi skinhead in American History X
That’s the thing about living your life as a meme made flesh: People know the meme.
The most preposterous reaction came from the Anti-Defamation League, which said we need to take a deep breath and not read too much into the richest man in the world and close adviser to Donald Trump simply because he happened to go on national television and share the salute that was routine among officers and staff at Birkenau and Treblinka.
This is a delicate moment. It’s a new day and yet so many are on edge. Our politics are inflamed, and social media only adds to the anxiety.
It seems that @elonmusk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute, but again, we appreciate that people are on edge.
In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let’s hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead.
Musk replied to the tweet with “Thanks guys” and a laugh-crying emoji.
Predictably, defenders of the salute and Musk were delighted to have that “Get Out of Antisemitism Free” card, and promptly got to business pointing out that the ADL itself had given Musk a clean bill of moral health.
“An awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm” is, at least, getting mocked all over social media, including several variations on this awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm:
And of course it was also time for gross trolls to start posting still photos of Democrats who spoke while gesturing with a hand briefly raised for emphasis, to prove that Elon was being falsely accused. Gosh, there’s even a 3-second video snippet of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez waving her arm and holding it out for a moment, so see, it’s a common thing that libs do but then they turn around and accuse others of being Nazis. “AOC is a Nazi” trended briefly in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.
The Chuds really enjoyed that one because AOC had earlier condemned the ADL statement for “defending a Heil Hitler salute,” and haw haw, there she is doing one herself!
Christ.
You know who didn’t equivocate at all about the gesture? Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the historian of fascism, who knows a fascist salute when she sees one.
You know WHO ELSE knew it was a Nazi salute? Actual online Nazis and likeminded creeps, like Gab founder Andrew Torba, who wrote “Incredible things are happening already lmao.”
Thomas Sewell, an Australia-based neo-Nazi, whose Telegram avatar is a picture of himself throwing a Roman salute, posted the video of Musk calling it a “Donald Trump White Power moment.”
The Proud Boys Ohio chapter posted to a clip of the Musk video to its Telegram channel with the text, “Hail Trump!”
Wired reports that the “administrator of a Nazi meme channel on Telegram” posted “WE ARE FUCKING BACK,” to which other little fascists replied with SS lighting bolts.
And of course there’s the German paper of record, Die Zeit, whose headline we have up top, explaining in the lede to its story (paywalled, but this much is readable, via Google translation),
There is no need to make this unnecessarily complicated at the beginning. Anyone who raises their right arm in a sweeping and diagonal manner several times during a political speech in front of a partly right-wing extremist audience is doing the Hitler salute. There is no need for “allegedly” or “similar” or “controversial.”
Well yeah, that’s what we’ve been saying.
Update: Thanks to Alert Wonkette Operative Bagels of Doom, here’s Die Zeit’s non-paywalled English translation of the story!
[NYT / Die Zeit / Rolling Stone]
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The social media apologists are now saying that the gesture was totes unintentional, because Leetle Lord 'Elnope has Asperger syndrome, so I guess that means he wasn't in control of his bodily movements. I mean, sure, no other Aspergers sufferers have this particular twitch, but for our boy here, he's got to do it twice.
I just read about the ADL's mealy mouthed response to this, so I went to their site and reported an antisemitic incident, namely their response to Elon.
Called them kapo
Curious to see if I get a response.