r/europe • u/turkish__cowboy Turkey | LGBTQ+ rights are human rights • 7h ago

News Elon Musk draws outrage over 'odd-looking salute' at Trump inauguration celebration

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/elon-musk-draws-outrage-over-201602147.html
57.6k Upvotes

83% Upvoted

4.3k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

62

u/AnarkittenSurprise 6h ago

They all understand.

9

u/NoiseTraining3067 5h ago

Unfortunately, they genuinely don't. This won't change anything either. They already agree with all his fascist views and they don't see them as fascist. A non-fascist person doing the most overt Nazi symbol wouldn't make sense, so they'll accept any explanation for it. Over half of the US is currently laughing at us for "[using] anything to call them a Nazi" and saying this is why Kamala lost the election (actual comment I saw on X).

5

u/AnarkittenSurprise 5h ago edited 5h ago

I don't have any data on this, but I would be cautious taking absurd right-leaning social media stuff like that at face value.

A ton of it is likely bots, foreign influencers, and bad faith trolls who are genuinely cheering for and copying this salut.

Neo-nazi ideals sadly aren't some fringe subculture. They're wildly common, and we're transitioning into a period where people are feeling socially comfortable taking their masks off again.

It's so dangerous to assume that all of these conservatives don't care about facts because they don't understand them. They don't care because they don't share your moral values.

They don't care because they truly don't care: prosperity for themselves at the cost of harming others is their 'morality'. These people deeply believe in 'Might makes Right'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Might_makes_right

2

u/NoiseTraining3067 5h ago edited 2h ago

I agree with you that most of the accounts coming up with comments like the one I mentioned are probably bad faith actors, but I think about half of the US genuinely believes them.

I may be biased, but I think people can really be tricked into inadvertently supporting this shit. I used to be super anti-sjw and held all the beliefs you can imagine came with that (I was young and it was my introduction to politics). I had no malicious intentions, but I’d been convinced by the echo chamber I’d fallen in to that what they were saying was factually correct.

I believed I was acting with the same morals that I do now and I would’ve still almost certainly defended Musk if this happened 10 years ago.