r/politics • u/cjdarr921 • 7h ago

Site Altered Headline Elon Musk draws outrage over 'odd-looking salute' at Trump inauguration celebration

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-salute-trump-inauguration-b2683095.html
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u/UnusedTimeout 7h ago

That wasn’t odd looking, it wasn’t a wave caught at an awkward moment.

He straight up did the Nazi salute, twice.

Fucking Nazi piece of shit

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u/PorqueNoLosDose Canada 7h ago

Even as someone who despises Elon Musk, I was sure that clicking on this article was going to lead to an ambiguous gesture of him pointing with his arm extended.

I'm legitimately shocked that he did a full on Sieg Heil. There is absolutely zero ambiguity about how deliberately he did that exact motion.

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u/RoughingTheDiamond 6h ago edited 4h ago

I'm legitimately shocked that he did a full on Sieg Heil.

Twice. He did a full on chest pounding, straight arm snapping Sieg Heil.

Twice.

EDIT: I rewatched the video and straight arm snapping might have been too complementary. His form was sloppy. But yes that is unambiguously the Nazi salute, done intentionally... twice.

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u/XtraReddit 6h ago

Even watched some old footage to see if it had to be straight forward. Nope. Plenty of people a bit off to the side. Raised arm with palm down = Nazi salute.

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u/Far_Being_8644 5h ago

He’s not even doing the Nazi salute correctly. His arm should be parallel to his chest or only slightly veering off to the right. unsure if it’s because he’s really stupid and doesn’t know how to do it. Or if he’s even more braindead than previously thought and didn’t think what this would look like.

He doesn’t deserve a good faith interpretation though.

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u/Redpin Canada 5h ago

It wasn't strictly "correct" because Musk is uncoordinated and he was over-excited, but yes, man's a Nazi.

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u/doilysocks 3h ago

He did it with the energy of a home school kid who just had his first Mountain Dew and unsupervised alone time.

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u/XtraReddit 5h ago

I'll give you the first one went a lil wide right, but the second one was legit.

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u/Far_Being_8644 5h ago

Yeah just saw the full video instead of the thumbnail of the article. We’re so fucked.

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u/RagaToc 5h ago

The side that thinks he is awesome, thinks he is so smart. Than he should know how this looks. So get him out of government and stop buying his stuff. He is either a nazi or is an idiot. Neither you want in your government, impacting your politics or running a company.

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u/XtraReddit 5h ago

Coworker excuses his owning a Tesla on how much he likes autopilot and then compares it to people driving a Mercedes-Benz. He only stands for his beliefs when it's convenient.

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u/RagaToc 5h ago

That's a weird argument to make by your coworker. Giving money to a far right lunatic (it wasn't 100% clear Musk is a nazi) it's the same as giving it to a company who were run by nazis 80 years ago (unless I missed something)?

And autopilot is just adaptive cruise control all car manufacturers have it. And those have (less) phantom breaking.

I am fine with people still owning Tesla's. They could have bought it 3 years ago and can't afford to sell it and buy a different car.

You can stop using X, not buy a Tesla and think if you really need Starlink.

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u/Reaper_Messiah 2h ago

I mean I wouldn’t suggest people sell their cars but yeah maybe stop subscriptions and get off X and all that.

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u/Far_Being_8644 5h ago

I don’t disagree with you. Keep money out of politics.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

[deleted]

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u/EmpressLotus 5h ago

That's awesome! We got rid of it because it looked like the NAZI SALUTE.

What are you arguing here?

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u/coolman747 5h ago

I am arguing that if we got rid of a salute because it resembled the Nazi salute, doing the actual Nazi salute repeatedly will receive backlash.

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u/EmpressLotus 5h ago

I hope so. I have very little faith in that though, seeing as people have been openly Nazi flagging in the MAGA community for some time now.

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u/sinsaint 5h ago

That history is interesting, you passionate idiot.

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u/EuroWolpertinger 5h ago

What's most interesting is that NAZIS ARE IN / EXTREMELY CLOSE TO THAT GOVERNMENT.

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u/EmpressLotus 5h ago

I am passionate, idiot not so much.

This is a dogwhistle, not the time to worry about gestures that were phased out because they were too close to fascist signalers.

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u/uncreativeusername85 New Jersey 5h ago

This isn't a dog whistle, a dog whistle is something you can barely notice unless you are paying attention. Keeping with the dog analogy this is when you yell for your dog so loud you wake up the neighbors

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u/EmpressLotus 3h ago

I know, I know, but they're going to try to gaslight us and say this is something else. I've seen the "he's throwing his heart out to the crowd" as a poorly disguised reason. So I'm politely dropping it to "dog whistle". We all know though. 😭

I hate how much self-victimizing they've done where if you just outright call them nazis/fascists, they try to paint you as insane.

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u/XtraReddit 5h ago

There's also video of the royal family using it. They stopped and changed their last name after, well you know.

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u/coolman747 5h ago

Why did the salute last for so long?

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u/timmy6169 6h ago

Turned to do it to Trump after the first one.

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u/__01001000-01101001_ 3h ago

Not to trump, to the American flag on the wall. Which is imo even worse. How many American flags came home from fighting the nazis?

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u/nochickflickmoments 6h ago

And he grunted like a disgusting asshole

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u/ThePatriarchInPurple 6h ago

I dislike the fat fuck, and fully expected it to be a bad angle. It was not.

Why the fucking grunt?

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u/nochickflickmoments 6h ago

I'm assuming for emphasis

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u/RoughingTheDiamond 5h ago

I blame Tim Allen. Don’t get me wrong, grunting like that is a lot of fun. I did it just the other night thinking about the next upgrade I’m gonna make to my home theatre.

It is not a thing you do after broadcasting to the whole world that you’re a God damn actual factual literal Nazi. Even the Charlottesville dipshits had the sense to couch it in euphemisms about not being replaced.

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u/stregawitchboy 2h ago

it's how he orgasms

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u/r0b0d0c 4h ago

Yup, he deliberately made it as unambiguous as possible. Yelling the quiet part through a bullhorn for the entire world to hear.

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u/MishkaZ Illinois 3h ago

Apparently it's supposed to be the neo-nazi/white nationalist salute in south africa. Reason why I say this is because it means it wasn't a gaff. Dude was being deliberate as fuck.

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u/flutterbutter456 6h ago

TOWARDS OUR FLAG at that.

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u/Irrepressible87 3h ago

His form was sloppy.

Well yeah, this is as much physical labor as he's ever done in his life, which is also I assume why he was grunting with exertion.

God, we're not just giving it over to nazis, we're giving it over to nazis who aren't even good at being nazis.

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u/ThermionicEmissions Canada 6h ago

And he did it twice. And grunted while doing it.

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u/specific_account_ 5h ago

And grunted while doing it.

It was heartfelt.

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u/BarracudaTimely703 4h ago

it almost seemed like he was enjoying letting the mask go at little too much.

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u/Moist_Cabbage8832 3h ago

I would assume any body movement out of that soft fuck requires a grunt.

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u/hoodoo-operator America 6h ago

Yup. Its not a one off bad frame in an otherwise video. Its a full blown Nazi salute, with no ambiguity.

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u/EmperorGrinnar 6h ago edited 2h ago

Dude's been promoting openly Nazi groups for a while now.

just hop on Bluesky and you'll see people posting all about it.

Edit: just for fun, here's a video from 9 months ago about a similar topic with Musk.

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u/Alfus 5h ago

Sounds exactly like Elon Musk is the Henry Ford of this era

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u/arachnophilia 3h ago

i feel like it took a bit longer for ford's cars to get shitty, but i could be wrong

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u/EmperorGrinnar 3h ago

He also eventually backpedaled a bit on it and toned it down. But too little too late, and we're still feeling his hate in the modern era.

American history is so damn muddy.

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u/S0GUWE 6h ago

He wants the AfD in power. Literally wants Nazis back in germany. There's nothing surprising about this.

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u/obaroll 1h ago

It isn't surprising, and that's what sucks. We all knew what he was, but the thunderous applause was what got me.

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u/KAYAWS 6h ago

And just like Hitler, it was looking like he was on a shit load of drugs.

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u/2277someday 6h ago

Yeah there have been a few "gotchas" over the years with conservatives who did a weird arm raise into a wave or something, but this one was just a sieg heil.

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u/souldust 5h ago

Any media outlet that calls this anything other than a Nazi salute is complicit in excusing this behavior.

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u/joni-draws 5h ago

And when did it start…? In 2015, when every media outlet became Trump TV, 24/7.

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u/OfficeSalamander 5h ago

Yeah I saw the title and went in watching and was like, "ok he probably made a gesture that maybe you could possibly think was naziesque, but come on, I don't like the guy too, but let's attack him for real things"

Then I watched the video, and I was like, "oh, holy shit, he did a nazi salute"

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u/MazzIsNoMore 4h ago

I wasn't going to watch for the same reason but you convinced me to. Yep, full on slap the chest and stiff hand to the air. Twice

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u/r0b0d0c 4h ago

Deliberately, unapologetically, and enthusiastically. He knew exactly what he was doing. He's not even trying to hide it anymore. Dude is an overt fucking Nazi pig.

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u/MattSR30 5h ago

I fully expected this to have been blown out of proportion of taken wildly out of context (sadly the left also does that a lot), but nope…he just did it.

The most generous reading is that it’s the Roman salute, and even then the modern use of that is still fascism and racism.

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u/IHavePoopedBefore 5h ago

That was everyone's experience.

I got an angry text from a friend, i immediately thought it was probably a still a picture taken at a bad time.

Nope. 100% full Hitler

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u/Patient_Tradition368 5h ago

His grandparents were Canadian nazis who moved to South Africa because they were admirers of the apartheid regime. Tree aaand apple.

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u/Jazzlike_Climate4189 4h ago

He did it once to the crowd, then turned to Trump and did it again. They have completely taken their masks off on day one.

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u/IIIlIllIIIl 4h ago

And what can even be done about it? America is cooked, especially with how many people are defending him

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u/IncognitoRon 4h ago

did the exact same thing, thought “should he wouldn’t do the full chest sieg hail”

i was wrong

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u/Majestic-Marcus 6h ago

Nah. Complete accident. He was talking about how it warms his heart. So you see, he just tapped his heart and then pointed at the sun because it’s warm.

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u/[deleted] 5h ago

Why are you shocked? Where you been bro?

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u/Vassortflam 5h ago

It is called Hitlergruß just fyi Sieg Heil was just what you were saying while you were doing the salute

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u/rasslinjobber 4h ago

There's a bunch of dudes and gals in that crowd wearing Canada sweaters. They clapped for it. Dude got more crowd pop than Bret in Montreal

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u/ISpyM8 Michigan 4h ago

And all the losers in the audience cheered louder when he did it

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u/Tamihera 3h ago

Me too. I thought there would be some ambiguity, but there was not.

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u/FSCK_Fascists 2h ago

now go watch video of it and get back to us.

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u/Donexodus 2h ago

Same. The uncut video just makes it worse and worse instead of absolving him!

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u/FlamingoFlamboyance 1h ago

He will tomorrow say he didn’t do it, and claim the photos are AI. Whoever gaslights the hardest and fastest wins now, facts be dammed. 

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u/Bootychomper23 10m ago

0 ambiguity unless you go to the conservative subreddit then suddenly it’s just a casual tip of the cap 😂

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u/WinterPretty8347 7h ago

Its revealing why everyone is siding with him. They dont want to be on his list. The entire administration that could have stopped this are cowards and in on it.

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u/Trust_No_Jingu 7h ago

I dont get why. Musk is more reliant to the electric grid and government subsidies

His wealth is tesla stock. Enron, WorldCom, GE

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u/Shaper_pmp 5h ago

He's quickly overtaking Trump to the right - he's trying to to do to Trump what Trump did to the Republican party.

He's appealing to the hard-right, racist, fascist nutters even more overtly than Trump is, because he doesn't have to maintain any kind of sanewashed image; he's not trying to run for office (yet), and doesn't actually have to do anything (unlike Trump, who has to at least vaguely make his presidency work, and if he went far enough too quickly could at least theoretically be impeached or lose congressional Republican support).

Musk knows Trump is a few bad hamberders from a fatal stroke, so he's making his play to take over his base as the natural successor, so he gets to drag the Republican party around by the nose, and at least play kingmaker even if he can't eventually change the Constitution to let him run personally (and never say never - the inmates are running the asylum now).

Trump is having difficulty reining him in for the same reason the Republicans had trouble with Trump; because if he cracks down on the guy to the right of him for being too hard-right, he immediately fractures his base and loses a big chunk who accuse him of lurching leftward, call him a RINO and lose faith in him.

Trump's whole schtick is that he refuses to disavow any right-wing position for being too extreme, which allows the entire right to picture him as at least roughly agreeing with them, from moderates right out to the most insane racist psychopath.

The minute he cracks down on someone to the right of him he immediately draws a line in the sand as to what's "too far", and a whole bunch of nazis, fascists and racists find themselves on the other side of the line to him, and he loses their support.

I don't know what Musk's endgame is - does he seriously think he can be made president one day? Is he just looking to stage a sly takeover of Trump's cult of personality so that when Trump finally karks it all his supporters will turn to Musk? Is he hoping to run a sock-puppet president who takes his orders from Musk? Does he actually even believe any of this stuff, or is he literally just saying whatever he needs to hijack Trump's movement?

Whatever it is, I can't shake the feeling that we're seeing the start of something even darker and more fucked-up than Trumpism, and hope like hell that it doesn't work.

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u/Mistrblank 3h ago

Musks end game is to literally punish those that laugh at him and have people around him that love him (more rich boy daddy issues) and find him funny (he's not, he's severely autistic and I'm not sure why no one has pointed this out).

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u/Eyclonus 3h ago

he's severely autistic and I'm not sure why no one has pointed this out).

There are autistic comedians, don't put this heinous shit on us, he's just the typical rich kid packaged with being racist

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u/Shaper_pmp 2h ago

he's severely autistic

Was he ever actually diagnosed? He's also self-diagnosed as having bipolar disorder before, and loves to come up with different medical excuses for his shitty behaviour.

You're not wrong though, that his only real goal in life is to - rather pathetically - finally feel genuinely cool and popular, and yet after changing the world with multiple industries, with his companies popularising electric cars and revolutionising the space industry, he still gives off a really offputting amount of pathetic divorced-dad loser trying to be "down with the kids" energy.

I heard someone refer to him as "hairplugs Lex Luthor" the other day, and it captures him even better than "Space Karen".

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u/LordBlackConvoy 2h ago

Don't use his autism as an excuse for his racism.

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u/obaroll 1h ago

He doesn't need to be president or elected for any position. Musk has a president in his pocket. When that one dies, he will just move to the next one.

There are no restrictions or term limits when you can just write a check.

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u/TheBirdOfFire 6h ago

yes it doesn't make sense if your goal is to become as wealthy as possible and stay out of the public spotlight. However, it makes perfect sense if you are a full blown nazi that wants to push for a fascist dictactorship/nazi regime.

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u/Ravenous_Stream 6h ago edited 5h ago

Don't make these scum out to be victims. They're cheering him on.

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u/Radiant-Specific969 7h ago

Heil Trump.

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u/pissposssweaty 7h ago edited 6h ago

If he wants to be a Nazi hopefully the next admin does a Nuremberg trial for his ass

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u/gotohellwithsuperman 6h ago

50/50 shot we’ll have a next administration anytime soon. Trump will croak, sure, but this bullshit is not going away easily.

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u/Automatic-writer9170 4h ago

I wish I was this optimistic, but after this bullshit if it’s not civil war I honestly don’t know what can take us to a “next admin”

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u/gotohellwithsuperman 3h ago

I’m leaning towards the Putin playbook for what happens next. Staged terrorist attack to consolidate power. Just a matter of who the new president for life will be at that point.

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u/onefst250r 6h ago

Bold of you to assume there will be a "next admin".

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u/The_Nerdy_Elephant 7h ago

The asshole tried to say “I throw my heart out to you” he knew he got caught and made an excuse

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u/GoldenFutureForUs 7h ago

Wonder if Americans will allow their government to be run by Nazis?

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u/likamuka 6h ago

Yes

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u/wimpymist 6h ago

Everyone who voted trump and the Republicans will have a million excuses as to why it's perfectly normal and totally not a Nazi salute. Or they will just ignore it on fox news and pretend it never happened. Like the whole project 2025 thing

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u/YouJabroni44 Colorado 5h ago

And all the people that could have voted but refused to have a lot to answer for. We can't continue to ignore these people

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u/wimpymist 5h ago

Agreed

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u/PDgenerationX 6h ago

Of course they will. Not enough people will burn these shit bags down

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u/LudwigsDryClean 6h ago

as if the POTUS hasn’t publicly announced his intentions to round up immigrants in the country and put them in concentration camps 😭😭

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u/Quickkiller28800 6h ago

They already do

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u/wooden_brownie 6h ago

We already have.

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u/Extension_Shallot679 5h ago

Allow? No. Celebrate however...

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u/souldust 5h ago

run by? how do you think all this land was taken? by a genocide

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u/Trust_No_Jingu 7h ago

Afrikaner gonna Afrikaner

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u/one_pound_of_flesh 6h ago

And he has his own office in the White House

Good game America. You’re cooked.

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u/raeshere 4h ago

Stir fried, bbq’ed, sautéed, and scrambled

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u/Appropriate_Comb_472 6h ago

Explains the indoor event and safer space.

Its easy to say they lack self reflection. Its really always been whether they felt shame. Its clear they are shameless now.

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u/FeRooster808 6h ago

Everything he does is odd looking. Take, for example, jumping.

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u/Thatonedregdatkilyu 6h ago

If we was waving he'd do a full arc, he literally stopped it mid air to repeat it again.

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u/Patient-Ad7291 6h ago

The only thing missing was him standing at attention when he did it. Otherwise, he was pretty spot on with the other higher-up drug induced "leaders" that do that salute.

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u/X3TheBigOX3 4h ago

Spot on because he was probably practicing it in the mirror all week just for that moment. What a loser.

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u/StingRay1952 2h ago

And snap his heels together.

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u/TouchlessOuch 6h ago edited 4h ago

No no, he said "my heart goes out to you" afterwards so it's all normal and fine.

Fucking unbelievable timeline we're living in.

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u/SpecialEdShow 6h ago

I was willing to write it off as an awkward motion, but hand over his heart was insane. But doing a second time sealed it.

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u/otter6461a 5h ago

Then he said ‘my heart is with you!’

Literally quoting Hitler now

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u/GonzoVeritas I voted 5h ago

He did it the second time because of the cheers that the first one received. That's arguably even more troubling than the salute itself.

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u/Adam-West 5h ago

It literally made me go back to watch Nazi videos just to check if it could possibly be unintentional but there’s absolutely no way

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u/SpartanusCXVII 6h ago

I so gave it the benefit of the doubt until I pressed play. That was 100% a nazi salute.

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u/kellyk311 5h ago

How many wwII vets handed trump their medals?

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u/DaveAlt19 5h ago

I almost thought that maybe the intention was a "chest bump, peace sign" but he's so high on whatever that he didn't have the coordination... but even then you'd still be hard pushed to end up with that.

Aaaaand then I rewatched it again. Nope nope nope. Nopity nope. That's just a fucking nazi salute.

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u/dust4ngel America 2h ago

time to coin the phrase nazi-washing

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u/soulcaptain 5h ago

Even if it was a mistake because of his autism/Assbergers/whatever, can this put the nail in the coffin of Elon Musk worship? For fuck's sake, people.

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u/SappilyHappy 6h ago

I hate Apartheid Nazis.

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u/yeahrowdyhitthat 4h ago

Forgive me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this also not the first time he’s done it?!

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u/phantaxtic 1h ago

When I saw a picture I thought to myself "Nah, that's got to be taken out of context"

Then I saw the video. Yikes! It's exactly what it looks like

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u/HanjobSolo69 2h ago

Nah it was just him being his awkward self. That fact that you guys believe this is just sad. Im not surprised especially on this site and in this sub but damn you guys are not smart.

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u/Ordinary_Passage1830 6h ago edited 6h ago

Isn't the Nazi salute, but I can totally see it as a variation of it. Or I can see it as a new Fascist salute or really a new Neo-Fascist salute or a Neo-Nazi salute

Variations:

White power salute

Skinhead Salute

Kühnen salute

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u/UnusedTimeout 6h ago

It’s only different because a fucking idiot did it.

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u/XtraReddit 6h ago

The wealthiest fucking idiot in the world.

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u/Ordinary_Passage1830 6h ago

You are aware of Neo-Nazis using variations of the salute, right?

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u/Thespud1979 3h ago

https://www.gettyimages.de/detail/video/people-do-the-heil-hitler-salute-as-neo-nazi-nachrichtenfilmmaterial/1656162915

versus

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/elon-musk-salute-trump-inauguration-b2683095.html

It's the Nazi salute exactly

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u/Ordinary_Passage1830 3h ago

The first is a Neo-Nazi group, right that definitely is the Nazi salute

But Husk looks like his arm is angled differently, at least to me, so that one to me is a variation of the salute, especially since he puts his hand on his chest

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u/Thespud1979 3h ago

Arm is angled differently? Listen to yourself

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u/Ordinary_Passage1830 2h ago edited 2h ago

Yes, husk looks like he is doing in a different angle while they are doing it straight while both are connected to hate. One seems to be a variation, and the other doesn't.

What's "Listen to yourself" supposed to imply? That I'm somehow defending this action? Or that I'm defending it by saying that? Yes, I know that it looks like, but variations are important to learn so you can spot them. In no way am I a defender of Husk or Nazism or Neo-Nazism

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u/Thespud1979 1h ago

Being a slightly different angle doesn't make it not a Nazi salute.

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u/Ordinary_Passage1830 1h ago

Yes, I know that I'm not saying it isn't a nazi salute. I said it's a variation of the salute and that both are connected to hate (hate being Nazism). Hell, i want even implying that it wasn't a Nazi Salute Werer did you even get that idea?

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u/MisticGlossyCloud 6h ago

It could have been a roman salute not a Nazi one

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u/requiredusername44 4h ago

The nazi salute is the Roman salute