Hacker News Reader

Comment by atq2119 | Hacker News Reader

[flagged]

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.

[flagged]

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.

I suppose the mania caused his twitter posts and white house politics as well? No, he meant it all.

None of his twitter posts or white house politics show him pushing nazi ideology.

> 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?

This whole comment chain is so baffling to me. HN is relatively intelligent, but we have people here seriously believing Musk did a Nazi salute on stage and that he's an actual Nazi. I don't know what to make of it.

I have to imagine it's motivated reasoning, because of the people who say it was a Nazi salute, approximately 100% of them already hated the guy. I've seen no one suddenly swayed. Fwiw I have no strong feelings about Musk either way, but to my eyes he is obviously not a Nazi.

Then your eyes are excellent at ignoring everything he said in the last 4 years on Twitter and did last year in the white house. Not to mention the salute itself. Or themself -- there were two, back to back, in case you missed the first one.

I have assessed your post history and it is literally 100% political argumentation, which aligns with my biases about what kind of people would write this sort of comment. That is not what HN is for.

You didn't even read the first page. Motivated vision strikes again.

So, there is little question about the type of gestures that Musk made, but I'm deeply curious about where it was directed.

Because we who read history all know that the "Nazi salute" or even the very American "Bellamy salute", and the Roman salutes before them, were directed to the leader, or a flag. And the Nazis in conjunction with saying "hail" to their leader. So far, so good?

But Musk was standing at a podium and looking out upon a crowd of people...voters...delegates... and he did not, in my view, try and face President Trump, or any leader standing at another podium, when he directed his salute outwards from the podium: outwards toward the crowd, opposite the camera angle.

So if Musk was not saluting President Trump: was he saluting a flag? Or the citizens? Because if he was saluting the citizens in this way, it gives a very, very different interpretation to the entire gesture, and if he was not saluting the president, or some leader, I do not see how this could be interpreted in the same way as the traditional salute of any type.

If you image search "hitler salute" you get 30 examples of Hitler saluting crowds. This argument is complete trash.

My father is 90 years old, so I asked him if he or his classmates said the Pledge of Allegiance, and he said of course they did.

I asked whether he had seen any of them making the Bellamy Salute, but he said no. I suppose he was too young to see it. Hail Caesar.

Caesar has been dead for 2000 years. The Bellamy Salute has been dead for 80. It's the Hitler salute now. Even your 90 year old father got the memo. Elon was not confused.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com