WATCH: Elon Musk appears to give fascist salute during Trump inauguration celebration

> It shocks me that people have such a visceral, irrational engagement with anything in Musk's orbit. Shocked? DOGE defunded USAID and children's cancer research funding. And have you read his twitter feed lately or seen this video? ▶ this video I agree that we don't judge his work based strictly on its merits but that's consequence a that he's created by his behavior, and I wouldn't call it brigading. The fact that you're shocked is silly.

The pose, as a static image, looks a little bit like someone waving their whole arm to a large crowd. The video, by contrast, shows a man deliberately engaging in fascist salute gestures : ▶ this video Pretending otherwise, that is ridiculous.

For which part? Global population increase: link White supremacist: link ▶ this video link link link and so on and so forth

>What do you mean _exactly_? Covering your statement is a shroud of vagueness doesn’t help form an opinion, only infuse more polarisation Oh come on. Everyone who's been paying attention enough to warrant having opinions on the subject knows what the reference is to. But if you just came out of a cryogenic freeze, they're talking about: 1. Elon Musk appearing to be giving a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration [1] 2. Elon Musk espousing and propagating white supremacist views nearly on a daily basis[2] 3. Elon Musk openly supporting borderline Neo-Nazi[3][4] German AfD party[5] 4. Elon Musk promulgating the myth of "white genocide"[6] I guess if you somehow missed all of that over the past few years, you wouldn't know what the parent comment is about. But in that case, you shouldn't be taking a part in this conversation, or opining about what would "infuse[sic] more polarisation". [1] ▶ this video [2] link [3] link [4] link [5] link [6] link [3]

"Don't believe your lying eyes", eh? You must have simply missed it, because it was recorded and everyone with eyes can clearly see it. Maybe it's just not spread very widely in your media bubble. Here's a video: ▶ this video PS: You're defending a billionaire who would poison the water in your grandmother's neighborhood to save a few cents on his tax bill. Poor people like you mean nothing to him. He even treats his daughter like shit, just because she was brave enough to live her life as her own. He's a morally bankrupt person, who got where he is by treading on and abusing people, just like any other billionaire.

I guess it would be like that, if the bar owner was a seig-heiling nazi [0] who always brings his nazi friends [1][2] , and spends most of his time in the bar actively trying to start fights between other patrons, to the point that people who used to go just for fun have left for other bars [3] . Also the bar makes and distributes child pornography [4][5][6] . 0: ▶ this video 1: link 2: link 3: link 4: link 5: link 6: link

> You don't get to throw out "fondness for throwing Nazi salutes" slander, based on an hoax immediately debunked at the time, and then act like you're doing democracy a favor. Just to clarify. This is the video context: ▶ this video Are you claiming that this is not an accurate depiction of what happened on stage? (That is the video is in some form fake. A deep fake, or special effects, or an Elon impersonator or whatever.) Or are you claiming that the gesture seen is not a nazi salute?

> I can show you a dozen conveniently freeze-framed images of prominent Democrats raising their arm in supposed "Nazi salutes". ...and I can show you a video of Elon Musk doing a supposed Nazi salute: ▶ this video This is from PBS, no more, no less...

> The jury is still out on whether what you are saying is hyperbole The president of the Heritage Foundation said “we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.” link -- link This is a direct quote from a major institution behind the current administration that is well known to be a major force for choosing judicial candidates for the GOP. I understand it feels like hyperbole, but that's not because it's hyperbolic, it's because it's hard to accept. Accepting it would cause a lot of grief and grief is disabling. Accepting it creates a sense of responsibility or a sense of helplessness, neither of which feel good. Accepting it means that we aren't just in a bad situation, we are in a literal emergency. It means action is necessary now. A secretary of defense and a chairman of the joint chiefs of staff have said he is a threat to the constitution and the country: link link 4 prominent republicans have Sieg Heiled including musk and bannon: link ▶ this video Here's the head of the OMB saying he wants to put government workers in trauma: link link These are primary sources... This isn't hyperbole. > We can't assume the worst-case outcome despite the serious danger of that outcome should it occur. We don't have to assume the scenario to ask if it is possible. What prevents that scenario? That is the real problem. Without rule of law, there is nothing that stops it. The problem isn't that one particular st

link But why was Columbia put first? It is in New York. More than twenty percent of its undergraduate students are Jewish. No matter the experiences or attitudes of these students, their university suddenly losing four hundred million dollars is unlikely to improve their education and life chances. Columbia students can speak for themselves. My guess is that Columbia was selected as the symbolic first target less because of the presence of antisemitism than because of the presence of Jews. And I think that this is something that actual American antisemites will immediately have grasped. The city of New York is coded for antisemites as Jewish. The antisemites in America, seeing Columbia and New York punished, will see Jews being punished -- and they will be pleased by this. The same goes for universities as a whole. Universities are often understood by antisemites to be Jewish. The attempt to bring universities to heel will be met by antisemites with approval. If that sounds wild, 4 prominent republicans have Sieg Heiled. Including musk, and Trump's first chief strategist Bannon: link ▶ this video

What I haven't seen mentioned (and it's cut out of most videos online) is that he also paraphrased the "14 words" directly after. Sure, different enough to have plausible deniability, but I would bet money on that message hitting home in certain circles who know those words well. Nudge nudge, wink wink, and all that. ▶ this video link Then again, people are not admitting to themselves that it was two full-on Sieg Heils (regardless of the underlying reason for it), so this is less of a smoking gun and I don't even know why I'm writing this post.

Sure, happy to expand. Stepping back quite a bit, the US constitution divides up responsibilities between the Legislator (Congress), the Executive (President), and the courts (Supreme Court). The Legislator is given rights over declaring war, applying tariffs and levying taxes, federal budget, approving international treaties, and of course writing laws. Over the past 250 years, the legislative branch has slowly given the executive branch more discretion. In times of emergency, the legislative branch moves too slowly, so the executive branch is better suited to make snap decisions. Trump, as soon as he's taken office, immediately used these powers to declare an emergency at the border ( link ) and redirected the military to intervene. It's an abuse of the power, as the situation has been relatively stable (enough so that congress should have had time to meet and decide on next steps), but it's something he did in his last term as well ( link ) so was expected. What wasn't expected was the repurposing of Guantanamo Bay (a military prison with a dark history outside the jurisdiction of most US courts) now being used for migrants ( link ). It's a worrying trend of moving undesirables somewhere out of sight of the general public. In his last term, there were detention centers inside of the US ( link ) with poor conditions -- most notably, Trump pardoned one such sheriff ( link ) who was remarkably cruel and called the tent cities personal concentration camps. This shift