“What do you think about Trump’s most visible advisor, Elon Musk, performing a Nazi salute?”
—-Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat from Connecticut and based on this question, a completely unscrupulous one, questioning Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik in her confirmation hearing to be confirmed as U.N. ambassador
Yecchh, ick, ptui, gag, retch! I’m sure it’s theoretically possible to stoop lower than Murphy, but I don’t want to think about what that would be. Urinating on the nominee perhaps?
This is pure Trump hate translated into slander. Musk, while gesticulating yesterday, ended up with one arm outstretched briefly with the palm down, and the still frantically desperate Axis, including PBS, began circulating the absurd Big Lie that Musk gave a Nazi salute for some reason. Oh! I get it! It’s because Trump is a Nazi!
I still can’t get my head around the reality that a U.S. Senator would try to join in on this gang smearing of Musk. CNN’s Scott Jennings X’d, “The only good thing about the Elon salute stupidity is that it adds to the list of people in public life who should never, ever, ever be taken seriously ever again by anyone ever.” Good point, and well said. Now, I’m ahead of Jennings, because I never took Murphy seriously anyway, except that he’s a serious jerk. Murphy is one of the worst of the worst in Congress, and missed my pre-election blacklist only because he wasn’t running. Yet even I, who regard him as an ongoing embarrassment to the Senate and the nation, didn’t see him resorting to this.
The question wasn’t even relevant to Stefanik, though she answered it with appropriate contempt, saying, “That is simply not the case. To say so – the American people see through it. They support Elon Musk.” I wish she had added, “And they are not the morons you seem to think they are. They know he didn’t give any Nazi salute.”
I find it hard to believe that the Democrats and the Trump-hating news media are really going to escalate their craziness as they try to destroy Trump for another term. Is it possible? Do they have a death wish? Are they that deluded? Is their learning curve not just flat, but upside-down? Jennings is not exaggerating. Bias makes you stupid, and hysterical bias makes you ridiculous.
(That’s Superman giving his “Nazi salute” above, courtesy of the Babylon Bee.)
Ethics Alarms 
Superman has his left arm forward. I thought the nazi salute was always with the right arm.
I occasionally play pétanque and at the moment of release the arm also looks like it is giving a nazi salute.
Oooh, sharp eyes there. There’s an explanation: the Krypton chapter of the Nazi party (KNP)used the left arm rather than the right for its salute. Just be glad the leader of the KNP didn’t escape Superman’s home planet when it blew up: then we would have had to contend with Suoer Hitler.
Well, there was the short-lived supporting feature Superman 2020. It featured the grandson of the original Superman joining his grandfather and father fighting evil in the then-future, and the very first episode featured him battling bigots who called themselves the Purists and used a variation on the Nazi salute and a variation on the swastika.
Goes along with this kind of statement…..posted online yesterday. Clueless about poster’s own lack of reality ….a church-goer we took to the Holocaust Museum. for a dose of reality…sigh..
“If you voted for the convicted felon, you do not believe in truth or reality or accuracy or facts. He’s going to take you to the cleaners. In fact you will not benefit from the incoming fascist regime. The only people who matter will be very rich people. He doesn’t give a da$m. If you voted for him, you are a fascist you do not believe in democracy you do not believe in tolerance or inclusion or support someone who is different from you but still a human created by God . you are disgusting.”
Reddit is awash in ‘Musk’s Nazi Salute’ posts. It’s depressing.
The proper response to these stupid accusations is “grow the hell up.” Honestly, did the Democratic party learn absolutely nothing last time?
Not every outstretched arm is a Nazi salute. It only is to those looking for a reason to accuse.
Jack, is your Stupidity Rule (?) written down, somewhere?
I intend to recommend it to another blogger whose site is regularly polluted by one of the dumbest phuques you could possibly imagine (NSFS–Not Suitable For Sanity)
PWS
From the Comment Policies under reasons for banning: (link above): “…the Stupidity Rule, which holds that some people are just too ignorant or stupid to take part in the discussion here, and interfere with the orderly exchange of opinions and ideas.”
Jack wrote:
The question wasn’t even relevant to Stefanik, though she answered it with appropriate contempt, saying, “That is simply not the case. To say so – the American people see through it. They support Elon Musk.” I wish she had added, “And they are not the morons you seem to think they are. They know he didn’t give any Nazi salute.”
To me, it is amazing that Stefanik or any other normal human being could retain his or her aplomb. A scathingly mocking retort sparing no aspect of Murphy’s person would be the appropriate response, especially since he just defenestrated all appearances of decorum with his absurd “question.”
I find it hard to believe that the Democrats and the Trump-hating news media are really going to escalate their craziness as they try to destroy Trump for another term. Is it possible?
Possible? I think it’s damned likely, unless they want to lose half their voting base and be primaried from the left.
I agree with you that Murphy is one of the worst in Congress. Between him, Hirono, Schiff, and Elizabeth Warren, it’s a neck-in-neck race to the Earth’s core when it comes to ethics. I think I’ll just take them all in a trifecta box.
Don’t leave out Jamie Raskin, Glenn.
I thought he was in the House? Anyway, I think I did say “Congress” when I should’ve said “Senate.” Your point is a fair one, though, and I could’ve place AOC in the mix as well along as many others, like Jasmine Crockett. But my intention was to name Senators.
Likely? Yeah, it is not only damned likely, it is actually happening. The idiots on CNN, ABC, Twitter, etc., are actively condemning Musk’s white power salute. Ocasio-Cortez posted about it. Murphy, in a Senate confirmation hearing, asked a nominee if one of Trump’s advisors is a fucking Nazi!
Hold on to your seats. It’s gonna be a bumpy 4 year ride.
Oh, and one of Melania’s dresses had some oblique reference to something white supremacy and all.
Yeah, the Resistance is simply firing up its willing engines.
jvb
Really really stupid, and they’ll deserve what they get. Unlike 2016, a majority is sick of these stunts, and all it will do is alienate the reasonable while thrilling the crazies. The Democrats are nearing an extinction-level event. They’d better figure it out fast.
“Oh, and one of Melania’s dresses had some oblique reference to something white supremacy and all.”
I’ve been unsuccessfully looking for an EA comment I posted in 2016 about how the same fashion editor saw HRC’s wearing white to accept the democratic nomination signaled empowerment, but Melania’s at the republican nomination was reflecting her husband’s fealty to white supremacy.
Thought it was in my extensive EA archives but I can’t find it; help?
PWS
I can’t find the comment either. Are you sure that comment wasn’t posted in our old madison.com stomping grounds?
Pretty sure it wasn’t there. The columnist in question posted two (2) diametrically opposed views of HRC (glowing) and Melania (damning)
PWS
I have searched far and wide and can’t find what you’re talking about, not here on EA or any other place. Maybe the article is behind a paywall like the Washington Post’s site, I suppose the article could have been pulled.
Au contraire. I hope the continue to double down indefinitely. Who knows, perhaps if they do, the mid-terms will generate a larger Republican majority in Congress instead of a smaller one.
Anything that weakens the Democrats right now is good. They are utterly dangerous to the republic collectively as currently constituted, and serving some time as a true rump party would be a gift from God to both them and us.
Stefanik could have answered his question with a question of her own: “Senator, were you born that stupid or did it happen gradually over time?”
Back in 2016 after Trump was elected to his first term, my then four-hands piano teacher referred to Trump as a NAZI as if it was a perfectly acceptable thing to do. I was amazed. Doing so has now become perfectly acceptable, even laudable, in polite society. Ironically, I think they’ve watered down the meaning of “NAZI” (and “fascist” as well!’) such that “NAZI” means nothing more than, “a person who does not agree with every belief held by each and every fully devout and correct lefty anywhere.”
When everyone is a Nazi, no one is a Nazi.
So ironic they’d inadvertently eviscerate one of the nastiest (with good reason) labels of the 20th Century.
This.
One other note: While many on the Left are indeed “fully devout”, there is no such thing as a “correct lefty.”
In my opinion, the people declaring others “Nazis” are historically illiterate and don’t know anything about actual Nazis. They just grew up hearing that Nazis are among the worst political movements in history, so anyone who disagrees with them must be a Nazi.
They couldn’t be, I don’t know, a Bolshevik or Khmer Rouge or Maoist? I guess not, because history is barely taught, and among those, only the Nazis fought against us.
If you want to have a discussion as to whether Hitler or Stalin was the worst psychopathic mass murderer in the 20th century, that’s a legitimate topic. But no one in this country, on any side of the aisle, really comes close.
Now as far as fascistic or dictatorial — well Biden and the Democrats have been giving us lessons over the last few years on how to become those things. And lessons on how to create a Ministry of Truth.
Their projection is showing in the accusations of Trump — they’re trying to convince us that he will be doing what they have been doing.
Trump talks a mile a minute, but his actual record doesn’t show dictatorial tendencies. I really hope that he can accomplish enough that the backlash that’s been building is blunted before we go too far along the third world banana republic slope.
(Mao wins the prize. It isn’t even close.)
And then AOC said hold my beer when she attempted to Jewsplain to the ADL what a heil Hitler salute is – on the ADL’s X- feed, no less. She was promptly dragged, and dragged hard.
God, she’s stupid.
Agreed. She is dumber ‘an a bag of hammers, but she is the DNC/MSM darling. They hold on to her every utterance as it is the very truth put forth by God himself.
jvb
Having watched the video, I do think Musk’s gestures were bafflingly and unfortunately similar to a Nazi salute. I do think all the memes drawing false equivalence to other people with outstretched arms purposely display just how forceful and directed Musk’s movement was.
It’s obviously insane to think he intended to make a Nazi salute. Still, I think it’s one of those cultural things (perhaps the only thing?) that you have to apologise for, even if unintentional.
If you watch the vid with the audio, it’s not baffling at all. Elon says “My heart goes out to you.” immediately after his gestures pantomiming that by holding his hand over his heart and then flinging it out towards the audience. If the talking heads and others cut off or fail to mention that part, they’re deliberately lying.
Nonononono! That’s how the Big Lie works. Musk shouldn’t acknowledge it at all, and if asked directly, should say, “That is so outrageous and insulting that I refuse to dignify it with a response.” And leave.
Musk’s apology – if one is given – should be along the lines of “I’m so sorry that so many people are so stupid and so deluded to think I gave a Nazi salute. Most of you with that thought know only one fact about the real Nazi Party and all its history: Adolf Hitler. I recommend you lock yourselves in the room where spend the most time – even if it’s your parents’ basement – and do some actual research followed by some good hard thinking before you accuse me of something.”
A bit of democrat-esque dissembling and cognitive dissonance on the issue from across the pond (from a BBC article on Elon’s “salute”):
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was asked about the comparison to a Nazi salute, something that is banned in Germany.
“We have the freedom of speech in Europe and in Germany,” he said.
“… what we do not accept is if this is supporting extreme right positions. And this is what I would like to repeat again.”