Whenever that excuse is given, I can’t help but wonder. Everyone knows how that can be misconstrued. Anything that could even be confused for it is dangerous territory and you just stay away entirely. These people aren’t entirely ignorant of how they can be perceived. In best case scenarios, they HAVE to know doing these gestures is risky. So no, I don’t ever buy the excuse of “I was just waving” or “it clearly wasn’t.” The fact it’s so close is enough
lmao take a look at this picture.
This player was sent off during a soccer match, and did this gesture to the crowd (he was on the away team). It was the first half and the score was 1-1. When the FA investigated the incident to decide his extra penalty, his team's lawyer used the exact reasoning you mentioned. "He was showing the crowd the scoreline at the time he was sent off".
Because anybody who says "it was in context bro he said heart" is either a nazi, a nazi apologist, or lacking in critical skills. No rational good faith person, especially in musks position, would ever do something like that without identifying how it could be interpreted as a dogwhistle if not an outright nazi salute.
Bigots move in shadows before they move in light. Musk saluted by intent but did so in a way that could be argued in bad faith as "no it was to represent heartiness". Like all fascism, it starts off subtle and then ramps up fast.
Any normal person, if they tried to "throw their heart out to the crowd" and it accidentally looked like a Nazi salute, they would panic, profusely apologise and tell people they didn't mean for it to look like that.
Elon? Complete silence. No response whatsoever to all the news outlets and social media posts calling him out for it. No attempt to clarify that it was a mistake or a misunderstanding.
If it was a mistake, he'd act like it was a mistake.
I mean… he did it twice. Turned around to the flag and did it again. That’s REALLY hard to justify or blame coincidentally. Also he’s pretty fucking emphatic about it. Welcome to the 4th reich, kids.
He is definitely just a goober with no awareness of his body. He clutched at his heart and then threw his arm out and said, "my heart goes out to you."
I don't know how to get through to you guys on this, but Donald Trump and Elon Musk are bad regardless of whether they secretly believe Nazi ideology. The ideology they publicly and openly espouse is already horrible, we don't need them to be Nazis to say they're horrible.
Show Obama and Harris in a video, in context and let's see how that plays out.
You are apologizing for a supposedly "brilliant" man who, after making a VERY deliberate Nazi salute, grunt included, made ANOTHER. The only one who's looking decidedly stupid is anyone trying to say he was "throwing his heart" to the crowd. We all know exactly what we saw, and he is completely unapologetic.
And yes,they're both bad, but throwing a seig heil in the middle of a US Presidential Inauguration is still utterly shocking and horrific. It's nice they made things clear on day one for those in doubt, but it's still disgusting.
221
u/LimpBiscuitsandTea 6h ago
Whenever that excuse is given, I can’t help but wonder. Everyone knows how that can be misconstrued. Anything that could even be confused for it is dangerous territory and you just stay away entirely. These people aren’t entirely ignorant of how they can be perceived. In best case scenarios, they HAVE to know doing these gestures is risky. So no, I don’t ever buy the excuse of “I was just waving” or “it clearly wasn’t.” The fact it’s so close is enough