Yep.

Now each of us has to answer: are we going to sit down at the table currently seating n number of Nazis, and let it become n+1.

Stop enriching this freak.

Finally, someone who gets it. I've been documenting all of this outrage on Lemmy over the last week and I'm gonna blog about how much real things we missed in the meantime.

I get where you're coming from, but if someone can get away with doing things associated with a group that's shorthand in the West™ for the worst people in the world, I do think that's a problem too.

The purpose of doing a Nazi salute so publicly, in the context of "saving civilization," does the purpose of a dog whistle but with the subtlety of an air horn. It's to send out acknowledgment to Nazis, a gesture of solidarity, that he's on their side and wants their support/approval. You would think this would be sabotaging the system if Naziism was in fact against their ideals and was bad optics. Nowadays the only excuse they need to be a Nazi is to "trigger the libs" so you'd be safe to say that nothing will come of this, people will shake their heads and wag their fingers but will still do business with him because money. So he's cashing in, he knows probably better than anyone that the Nazis have, in fact, successfully taken over the American government. Well done, Americans.

Musk has been Nazi friendly for years now. Including some pretty antisemitic shit he's boosted.

Then there were the swastikas in the SpaceX and Tesla breakrooms.

Add to that, the fact the Musk is a dumbass who only thinks he's smart... And yeah. He thought he could get away with it.

I think this is Elon trolling and pushing the boundaries of what can be done. It‘s being edgy and provocative, while obfuscating his true intentions.

Elon used a fascist salute twice in public on stage to thunderous applause. Now he gets the support of the actual fascist right. However all he mainstream republicans in the audience who cheered now have to defend him as well. This will have no consequences for Elon. It was pure demonstration of his power to do whatever he pleases, both to his side and to the opposition. This also gives Elon attention and amuses him.

Elon might call this salute the heart (of America) salute and repeat it in the future. Any other rightwinger who loves trolling the libs now has a role model. Salute from the heart, such a harmless gesture, and it gets the normies all upset. Do it as a laugh first and then for real over time.

Someone who doesn't pick as many internet fights as me needs to post that to BestOfLemmy

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 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'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.

That had nothing to do with ketamine, Musk is just a nazi.

Being a Nazi doesn't help either.

Yet today when Americans have 2A and 11 guns per person instead of killing tyrants they'll side with them out of convenience and self preservation. The apathetic centrist majority who think political illiteracy is the reasonable and sensible position are the biggest asset to fascism.

The Great Man Theory take is that Hitler was saying and doing a kind of politics unique to his historical moment. He didn't stumble into the right beer hall at the right moment and echo the sentiments of tens of thousands of his disgruntled military peers but transformed the popular views of a nation. His rhetoric was brilliantly gripping, rather than just heavily circulated. His political maneuverings were expert rather than just stubbornly persistent. His military strategies were the product of genius rather than meth and recklessness.

Go back in time and kill Hitler and you don't fix the post-war disparity between the WW1 Axis and Ally powers. You don't discourage re-militarization in a country overrun by US military contractors that saw massive profits in rearming the German state. You certainly don't mitigate the impacts of the post-1917 wave after wave of Red Scares or keep Henry Ford from circulating "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in every Ford dealership on either side of the Atlantic.

At best, you spare Charlie Chaplain the shame of shaving off his tiny mustache. But there's a strong reason to believe the post-Depression fascist wave that crested into WW2 was over-determined.