An now people are downplaying it.
In probably the most influential country in the world (like it or not), on the presidential inauguration, Musk took the microphones, and then did a Nazi salute.
Then he did it again.
And then he said “my heart goes to you”, putting his hand on his chest.
And of course, people rushed to find an explanation. That he actually just wanted to “send his heart” to the people. That he’s autistic. That he was waving. Even that it was a “Sci-Fi gesture” (I wish, oh how I wish, I was kidding).
You know, the man who bought Twitter then unblocked Nazis, then gave them visibility, then boosted their posts, then started to flirt with Nazis worldwide, and didn’t deny he did the salute, is “just waving to the crowd”.
Of course, people with common sense are not buying the explanations. Nor, unsurprisingly, the neo-nazis, which are quite happy with the salute.
I, of course, won’t link any neo-nazi stuff here, for they don’t deserve an audience. But you just need to use X to find out, of course, if you have the stomach.
But more than that, the fact that basically all online media is not calling the gesture from what it is, is also worrying. Maybe they are just scared of being sued by Trump, which as of now, is immune of all legal actions against him. Maybe they just don’t want to be squished by Nazi supporters which, by the loud cheer we can hear in the video after he throws both salutes.
You know, when I was younger, when somebody wanted to portrait a comically-evil supervillain, they made them a Nazi. They were a joke, like “nobody could be this evil in modern history”.
I’m not laughing anymore. As a husband of a African black woman, as a father, I can’t.
I tend to be quite to these “world events” that might cause commotion, because I am – and I can’t emphasis this enough – very tired of us committing the same mistakes and then brushing it off as “learning moments”. But not this time. Not when there are literal Nazis at the door, influencing the whole world to think like they.
Not when I am, right now, an immigrant. Together with my wife and kid. Not when the country I am, right now, can be manipulated so other people start to throw insults to us (but specially to they). Not when I am at risk to be mistaken by “one of they”, just because I’m a man, I’m white, I’m Cis and and I’m heterosexual.
You know what you do when a literal Nazi says that what happened was a Nazi demonstration?
YOU
BELIEVE
IT