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Not a Nazi (Error)

Entry 2383, on 2025-01-24 at 16:08:38 (Rating 4, News)

I don't know whether the issues that I see as being prominent around the world are the same that other people are aware of. I sometimes mention a controversy which I have seen featuring a lot on-line only to find that no one else has a clue what I am talking about.

So if the issue I am discussing here is not one you are familiar with then I guess this is in that category: a major talking point on various on-line platforms, but not being widely reported or discussed in the legacy media. Anyway, the subject is Elon Musk's "Nazi salute".

There are various labels which political groups like to use to criticise their opponents. These are generally poorly defined, not backed up with facts, and really the modern equivalent of just using a childish, generic insult, like "idiot" or "dick" or "retard". And I must mention here that this phenomenon seems more prominent on the left than the right, although both sides are guilty to some extent.

So the modern equivalents are words like "fascist", "Nazi", "misogynist", "transphobe", and "racist". No doubt there are people who genuinely are one or more of these things, but in the vast majority of cases they are just fatuous words, completely lacking in any real meaning.

Since Elon Musk has aligned himself with Trump he has become a major target for the left, maybe even more so that Trump himself, and that is really a big call when we consider how common Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) is. On Musk's own platform, X (previously Twitter), he is constantly attacked and every post he makes is criticised, sometimes fairly, but often just because of who he is.

So here's what happened...

In a recent public meeting for Trump, Musk made a speech and emphasised his points with various hand gestures, including one where he thanked Trump supporters from his heart. The gesture he made was to place his hand over his heart, then energetically push his arm out towards the people he was thinking. But if you carefully choose the right (or wrong) exact moment from this gesture, the outward movement of his arm can look like a Nazi salute.

I mean, this is so stupid I can't even believe I have to discuss it, but the anti-Trump (and by extension, anti-Musk) crowd have taken that moment and said it shows he is a secret (or maybe not so secret) Nazi. I know, this sounds like satire, but it really is an issue being discussed both in social media and in the mainstream media.

Many Trump supporters have countered this silly claim by showing carefully selected frames of prominent leftist politicians, including Kamala Harris and Barack Obama, who also appear to be doing the same gesture. But apparently they still don't get it: Elon is a real Nazi and those others are just people who are being persecuted. It really is pathetic, there's no other word for it, I'm afraid.

You might think this silliness is irrelevant and that the more authentic criticisms of Musk and Trump should still be taken seriously, but it does show a pattern of dishonesty and desperation that should make us suspicious of any similar criticism of them. Sure, I know they do get things wrong occasionally, and there are Trump policies and ideas I disagree with, but my default position is to assume that the rhetoric used against them is BS.

So really, the leftists are just further destroying their already bad reputation, and the mainstream media (commercial and state TV, radio, and newspapers) are just accelerating their demise. They already have record low levels of trust, and this sort of thing is exactly why.

So no, Elon is not a Nazi, and Trump isn't a fascist, and the vast majority of people who are labelled racist, transphobe, etc are not those either. I would take about as much notice of these insults as I would a 5 year old kid calling another kid a loser.

Not only is Elon not a Nazi, but I actually believe he is the most important person in the world today, both because of his epic businesses and for his political activism (which I mostly agree with). But the bigger a winner he is the more the left will hate him, because there is one thing they cannot cope with, and that is brilliance and success.

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