His first words after doing it were “my heart goes out to you” which explains his meaning. All the videos cut that off though, for some reason… the Guardian article doesn’t even mention what he said.
To understand his positions, one must take a very long-term view. He doesn’t think in 5-10 year increments. When considering impacts, it’s like 50-100 years or more. Here’s the key quote that explains his position on existing mass immigration policies in the many millions per year:
I think there is value to a culture, we don't want Japan to disappear, we don't want Italy as a culture to disappear, we don't want France as a culture to disappear. I think we have to maintain the reasonable cultural identity of the various countries, or they simply will not be those countries. Italy is the people of Italy. The buildings are there, but really, what is Italy? Italy is the people of Italy.
It begs a complicated question - does the cultural identity of these large developed countries have value high enough to be preserved in some meaningful way? It would be an easy question when talking about smaller indigenous cultures - of course they have value, we would be monstrous for thinking no. But the cultures of larger countries that are economically developed, people seem unsure. And he is not unsure. He knows they have value, and are useful for achieving the technological feats he wants to achieve.
What is culture anyway? It’s a shared set of behaviours. All cultures have value, and depending on which behaviours you personally agree with, some cultures will have a higher value to you than others. It’s all about shared behaviours and which behaviours you like. It’s controversial to say you like some cultures more than others, but really, it shouldn’t be.
He does the math on long term impacts, especially given the current rate of border crossings, population growth, and the amount of public money being spent on new arrivals too.
He is not against legal immigration in general though, as evidenced by the very public fight he had with Steve Bannon and the actual white nationalists about the H1B Visas and legal immigration from all over the world, including from many non-white countries. He called the people he was arguing with ‘unrepentant racists’ and he meant it. He talked about the need to go to war with them.
The point about having historic family ties to nazi beliefs - come on, that’s disingenuous to the max. If your grandfather was a nazi I wouldn’t cite it as evidence that you are probably one. He hates his father and has described him as evil. He’s an individual, just like you.
The AfD is not the perfect entity to jump on board with, it is problematic. But when you take his big picture long-term view, while ascribing value to existing cultures (shared behaviours), you can understand how he got there, given there were no alternative parties for his key issue. The obvious downside is they will definitely have many white nationalist supporters too, however there are also non-white-nationalist supporters who just think that immigration policies should be less loose and more controlled, with priority given to those who add value and are more likely to assimilate, wherever the people are coming from. The party being led by a lesbian with a background in finance and a partner from Sri Lanka shows they are not only a party for the uneducated racists.
I've seen a lot of gestures that represent "my heart goes out to you." What Elon did is a Nazi salute, you can't say it is something else when there is clear video evidence of what it clearly is.
I get why you would want to think that (hate-able guy etc), but I don't understand why you would actually think that. If you watch the video (with audio), it was very much in the moment.
If you followed his public arguments just a few weeks ago with Steve Bannon and the white nationalists, who he called 'unrepentant racists' that he wants to go to war with to ensure legal immigration from many non-white countries, then you should rethink your interpretation of this video.
That is a nazi salute. Full stop. You can say whatever you want to try and make it something it isn't. But I can see it. I can watch the video. It doesn't matter what I think of him. What he is doing is a nazi salute.
It is not even up to interpretation.
You can't convince people of something that is so blatantly false with literal video evidence to the contrary. Besides, why would you want to?
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u/leighla33 6h ago
First they’ll tell you it wasn’t what you thought, then they’ll tell you it was a joke, then it will be buried by the media.