It's 2025. Please Stop Playing Dumb. It Was A Nazi Salute.

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:12 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 471. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and today I've got one of those Thomas needs to say something episodes, so just, I guess, be warned. That's one where I got to say stuff and sometimes I get yelly, but I just can't, I can't fucking take this anymore. I cannot do it. I cannot, I cannot. We cannot. It is, the year is, checks calendar, the year is 2025 and we're really, really going to sit here in the year 2025 after we're on nine years of paying attention to Donald Trump, like, like mainstream paying attention to him as a political figure, nine, nine years or whatever it is. And we're going to have Elon Musk do what is obviously to anyone with fucking eyeballs, a Nazi salute at his inauguration. And we're still nine look in 2015 or 16 or whatever I guess inauguration would have been 2017 but like 2017 I guess I understand I would still just call a spade a spade but I guess I would understand institutionally the response being like oh what was this oh they have to play dumb what was some people say it might have been a Nazi salute I get that in 2017 it's 2025 25. If anyone you are listening to or reading or anything can't just say, well, it was clearly a Nazi salute. So that's obvious that I, why, why we listen to him? Why do we do it? Like, I'm genuinely wondering at this point, I hate listen to the New York times. I listened to the daily and every single time I hate it now because they just play dumb. I can't, that's what it is. I can't do the playing dumb. I can't do it because the only way to do this balanced coverage, you know, what in quotes, like both sides, the balance, whatever. The only way is to pretend you, a New York times reporter, for example, are an idiot. And I know that's not true. I actually know that you're probably a very intelligent person, whoever you are, all of them. You're probably quite intelligent. Maybe you're too intelligent. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe you've convinced yourself that in the service of journalism, you have to do this thing where you pretend things aren't what they are. I heard a whole episode of The Daily on what Trump, Trump trying to, with an executive order, get rid of a part of the constitution, a thing that is fucking stupid and unconstitutional and obviously not right in every sense of the the word and they have to do this thing now where they're like well they think trump side thinks that this is just a fact and they're convinced that this that's a good idea to limit and they have to sane wash the fuck out of it and state it in these very like calm rational terms and attribute motives to people that they don't have often like they like when you attribute good motives to someone who has bad motives you're not doing a good thing you're like being more fair air. Like if I, if I if there's a villain and they're trying to kill a bunch of people and I'm like, well, they they believe that there's too much weight on Earth and that's all they're trying. Like it does. That's nothing that's actually giving me that's misinforming me. It's making me less informed just because you can find a rational reason for something that isn't there, but it's findable. It's that you could think of it. And some people think good Good faith means you have to then go based on that. But that isn't what good faith means. Good faith mean treating people where they are and giving benefit of the doubt, but only if they haven't completely lost all credibility repeatedly a thousand million times over nine years. Then you're an idiot if you keep doing it or you're actively misleading people. All right. I haven't even got to the commercial break and I'm so mad about this. We got to talk about Elon Musk and, and I don't know, a hundred more opinions, but I'm just, I, what fucking year is it? Everybody. Oh, a gesture. He made, there's a, the people are interpreting the gesture to me. Just fuck off. All right. Uh, patreon.com/seriouspod. If you want to avoid that, please support the show. It's really important. Nobody's nobody tells the truth anymore. Just nobody does it. Please support anyone who you think is appreciate it.

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0:04:40 Thomas: All right, I guess I should take a step back and say, here's what. Happened. If you live in a hole or something or you're avoiding it, if you're avoiding it you probably didn't even push play on this. So I don't know. Just in case though. What happened was at the inauguration speech Elon Musk gave his usual really like hyper kind of awkward speech where he he wings it every time. He's like Trump in that way except I think Trump sometimes at least has talking points whereas Elon truly just wings it. Like it takes a takes a true true narcissist to go up in front of the world, really be like, yeah, I'll just wing my speech. I'll say a few things. It's like a Joe Rogan podcast. Honestly, it really explains a lot. It's the same. It's the same mode. He doesn't, he's not going to prep. He's a genius. He's the best genius in the world. He' s the most brilliant, interesting person in the world. Why would he need to prepare anything to say? That'd be foolish. So I'll play the part just so that we're all on the same page. I can, you know, I'll describe what's happening, I guess, and you can hear the audio.

0:05:38 Clip: And I just want to say thank you for making it happen. Thank you. My heart goes out to you.

0:05:49 Thomas: So you can kind of hear he does the nazi salute first grabbing his chest which that part that part's plausible grabbing your chest oh my you know thinking my heart goes out to you the part where you then do a very obvious nazi salute not plausible it's just not it's not plausible and after that is when he says my heart goes out to you he hasn't said anything like that beforehand not that I mean I think that's somewhat important it's like he said hey my heart goes out to everyone and then like did it, which still I wouldn't believe him because he did a Nazi salute. It's obvious if you look at it, but that would be slightly, slightly more believable than just doing the Nazi salute and then after a lot of applause being like, ah, my heart goes out to you. So here's the thing. If you watch the clip, don't look at a picture. I know I played the audio, but I did that just so you could hear when he said my heart goes out to you, it's far after he did the thing, but you have to actually watch the clip. You can't just look at a still shot because that is the first level of idiot defense is, oh yeah, look at this still shot of when a left politician had their arm in roughly that same final position. But it's the final position part that sure is the rub there. He puts his hand to his heart and then he just does a Nazi salute and it's very obvious it's it could not be more obvious there's no chance that he didn't intend to do a nazi salute now here's the thing you could still argue he's not a nazis fine I'm not like this there's multiple reasons that this asshole might have done this and we could argue about those there is no argument about whether it was a nazy salute it was either an ironic nazi salute, a trolling Nazi salute, which is kind of the same thing, or just a genuine like desire to do a Nazi salute in front of a bunch of people for, for Nazi reasons. It's, those are kind of the rough landscape of possibilities. There is no chance that it's not a Nazi salute. He did it intentionally. There has no, people are pretending they're, oh, that's the, you know, that universal, my heart goes out to you gesture that you do before, you Know, 30 seconds before you say my my heart goes out to you, where you put your hand on your chest and then you do a Nazi salute, that doesn't exist. Furthermore, it's kind of funny. People found a different speech where he actually says, my heart will go out to you, and he actually does more like what you would consider a possibility during that, which is he puts his hands in a heart like on his chest, and then he kind of like waves it out to people like, my art goes to you in a way that's actually he's doing that, like in that moment, which is like pretty powerful evidence, not that we need it anymore more because the thing he did is a Nazi salute. But there's another time when he was doing the thing, which is my heart goes out to you folks. And he did it way differently in a way that was way more plausible. It actually made sense for the explanation, unlike here. So yeah, there are a lot of still photographs. And if you do a still photograph, that doesn't prove anything like, yeah, all Nancy Pelosi, Obama, every, everybody at some point has had their hand maybe in that like orientation that that that's fucking stupid though what matters is what led to there and and in so many examples of people on the left they weren't doing anything like that if you actually play the whole clip it's very clearly just a frame that you grab that looks like that whereas when you play the clip of elon you know what you see a fucking nazi salute the The whole thing, exactly frame for frame, what a Nazi salute is. It's not arguable. What are we doing? What fucking year is it and what planet have some people lived on? I genuinely saw people actually like people on the left are like, well, you know, he's an awkward guy and he said his heart goes out, so I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt. What are you talking about? That doesn't exist. Exist. Everything the man does is a troll. Again, if you want to argue about why he did the Nazi salute, we can have that discussion. And I don't know that I have 100 % the answer there. My guess is, like, I'll debate about why He did the Nazis salute. What's not debatable is the salute. It's not debatable. Stop doing this, everyone. Stopdoingit. It is a Nazi salute. But obviously the mainstream media can't, they can't do it. Elon Musk, here's the New York Times. Elon Musk ignites online speculation over the meaning of a hand gesture. Okay. Yeah. Speaking at a celebratory rally in Washington, Mr. Musk twice extended his arm out with his palm facing down, drawing comparisons to the Nazi salute. Yeah, boy, there's no way for a reporter to actually tell us if it's fucking raining outside or not. All you can do is say that side says says raining. That side says it doesn't. There's no way to know. The other one was odd looking salute. Yeah. Odd looking salute. Sure. So the New York times completely sucks. And I is awful on this. Washington post is, is weirdly slightly better for now on this kind of thing. In my opinion, um, they did have obviously some, some different words and stuff, but they at least had an article, Musk's straight arm gesture embraced by right -wing extremists. So, I mean, slightly better. I mean that's important to point that out. That, hmm, Nazis sure think it's a Nazi salute. That's weird. You know who thinks it's the Nazi salute? Well, everyone actually. We all know it. The few people that might actually think it is not a Nazi Salute are like centrist Democrats. Democrats. It might honestly be true. It's like journalist type people who have lost that they've opened their minds so much that their brains fell out and they think they're doing a rigorous journalistic thing by entertaining the dumbest fucking theories as though they're all equally plausible. Plausible so then let's uh talk about why he might have done this uh very clear nazi salute uh lots of reasons I mean he could have just been very much signaling to those far -right people in a way that he knew you know he can do I number one number one above everything else uh number one reason is he knows he can he knows you can't he knows it doesn't take a genius uh in fact someone like musk who's of average intelligence um knows and could can recognize that this is the media environment now he can do he could goose step he could fucking goose step and the media will bend over backwards to not call it what it is and the people on the left will say what it is and a lot of people on left and a bunch of people in the right and useful idiots will do the thing where they they love to troll and they love the gaslight people that's what they like to to do. They like to do that because they don't, you know what they don't have? They don't have like normal human thoughts about policy and politics. They don't have like, hmm, I wish things could be better in this specific way for this group of people. And for that matter, this group people who isn't me, by the way, that never happens on the right. It's all me, me, it's all they care about. But like they don't even have like oh, you know what would be better is this certain policy. Let's talk about that. They just have have hatred and fascism at this point and MAGA, Trump worship. And so the things they do is just trolling. It's just trolling, they don't have actual politics, it's all fucking trolling which if you think about for two seconds and I would even extend this to some people on the left who I think ought to think about this, that doesn't make sense. There is no reason that a political debate, I know this, I'm sorry if this sounds naive, I don't mean it in a naive way, I mean it everybody should step back and fucking think about this way. There's no reason a political debate should involve trolling. A political debate or discussion of any kind is about how do we solve this problem? What should government do? What is it doing? What can it do? What are our beliefs about the country and what it should be and where we should allocate resources? Those are political questions. If I try to troll or like mock the other person, that doesn't actually have any bearing on anything. Like if we're just, and I'll go further. It's one thing to dunk a little bit. It's another thing where your entire mode of communication is ironic and you never actually discuss your real feelings. You're not, there's no debate to be had there. Why would, what does that do in a discussion? How have we gotten closer to the questions we're trying to answer? It's nothing. There's no point to it. So yeah, he knows he can do it. He knows this is the reaction that it's gonna be. And it might honestly be mostly trolling. I think that's a distinct possibility is he knows he can do it. It's funny to him that he can do it and he knows that like people on the right enjoy this process of gaslighting and people on the left will obviously say what it is. And so he sees that as a win. He gets to like have people on the right gaslight. He gets the gaslight that's an enjoyable position again because these aren't people with normal human beliefs and action and like feelings. They are narcissists and fascists who like the feeling of power over other people that they think they create by trolling and gaslighting. They are fascists at heart. They really are. It's like it's it's sickening. They don't care about the fucking price of eggs. Almost none of them do. I think a lot of the like middle uninformed voters who determined the fate of the country do who made up the two hundred and thirty thousand votes that won Trump the election in three states, two or three. That's it. About 230 ,000 votes. Three states. That's what did it. It was that fucking close. Some of those, I think a lot of those middle people who don't pay attention. Yeah, I think they care about inflation. That was about it. Price of eggs. That is about it The actual people, MAGA people, people in the movement, people vocally supporting Trump, they don't give a shit. It doesn't matter. The price of eggs could have been whatever. Inflation could have anything and they would still be finding just a different way to justify their fascism. It's not a genuine concern. And to treat their concerns as genuine is doing a thing that's incorrect. It is less informative. Real information should help you predict the world better. That's like the function of it. You want to be informed. You know what's going on. You want to better navigate the world. Taking people of good faith who aren't, who are actually just nothing but bad faith, is the opposite of that. It makes you less able to predict them. You will will get it wrong every time. Oh, who could have predicted the right would be the party of Russia after, you know, the cold war. Well, yeah, I, I didn't, I wouldn't have predicted it by the way, but now I can, now I Can explain it. And I know that the next thing will be that the next thing won't be about any genuine policy goal or political belief. It'll be what does Trump want and, and why, you Know, but basically Trump is the party. And especially if it's something that the left likes or is trying to do to help someone, then they're against that. And that's, I mean, that's their belief system. Trolling and Trump is basically it. God, I'm sorry. I actually have to read this fucking op -ed from Washington Post. Megan McArdle, the missing context from the Elon Musk salute. And the subtitle is we can't have a functioning democracy if we think our opponents are evil. Tell that to the people who ruined democracy because they think we're evil. Like, that's literally what they've done. It's like if, I mean, again, it's like the Third Reich comes in and dismantles democracy and gives all power to the Fuhrer. And then if anyone complained about it, imagine Megan McArdle being like, look, we can't have a functioning democracy if we think our opponents are evil. Not all people are Hitler. Hitler isn't Hitler. No, no, I'm blending my things. Not all Hitlers are Hitler, okay? OK, but like that's not I'm not I mean, the Nazi stuff is perhaps an exaggeration. Hopefully, I don't know. But like the rest of it isn't. I'm Not even joking. The people who have ruined our democracy and have made it not function are going to make it not functioning anymore, have done so because they think their opponents are evil. But the people you're lecturing is not them. Megan McArdle, you're lectureing the people who saw with their eyeballs what Elon Musk did. God, this is so fucking funny. I got to read this to you. Having never met Elon Musk, I can't rule out the possibility that the man deliberately gave a Nazi salute at the presidential inauguration parade. But neither can I reject the possibility of the gesture, clasping his right hand to his chest and then throwing it out to the crowd. Yeah, in a Nazi salutes is the part she left out. Was an awkward attempt to embody what he said next. My heart goes out to you. Yeah, sure. Sure. As a general principle, when there is a plausible innocent explanation, I err on the side of believing it. This will strike many readers as willfully naive, or perhaps even a sign of my own Nazi tendencies, which is exactly what's wrong with our politics today. Day. Well, wait, isn't that circular? So you're just isolating the second thing. What about the part where it's willfully naive? What if that was what I said? Then would that be what's wrong with our politics today? Is me recognizing that you're willfully naïve? Because that just applies to the second part in your opinion, which is it's a sign of your own Nazi tendencies. I'm not going to say say it's a sign of your own Nazi tendencies. I don't think so, but it's definitely willfully naive and just stupid. It's just really dumb. It is a dumb opinion to decide to give an innocent explanation for something that's not innocent. God, this is so good. Innocent? How can there be an innocent explanation for a Nazi salute is a question that nobody asked. That's not, Now, how can there be an innocent explanation for a Nazi salute? Well, then you're agreeing it was a Nazi salute, and then you are going to try to explain it. Anyway, here we go. This is the best part. This is why I got to read it. Well, I have stood in a crowd, my arm extended slightly above my shoulder, just like, you know. I often wondered if there is a photograph of that event floating around somewhere, because there were a number of well -known progressives nearby making the same gesture. Print such a photo in black and white and you could be forgiven for thinking it was taken at a Nuremberg rally you guys ready to have your minds but you guys really feel like real idiots for what she says next because here's the thing you never could have predicted we were not of course giving the sig heil we were at a wedding of two nice progressive young people and the minister had asked the guests to raise our right hands in benediction as he offered the blessing as my arm arm was about halfway up. I realized what this looked like and awkward glances confirmed that everyone was having the same thought. Nonetheless, as far as I can recall, we all went along rather than spoil the wedding with an act of civil disobedience. Civil disobedience? Does the guy work for the government or something? How would that be civil disobedient? It's a wedding. You're that's not okay. Oh, this is so good. It keeps going. I've now seen at least one person who was was at that wedding, insist that there is only one way to interpret Musk's upraised arm. Most likely, they've forgotten that they did something similar, or at least didn't recall it when opining about Musk. After all, they were participating in an innocent ceremony, while Musk was obviously doing something much more sinister. So the two things aren't connected in their mind. Yeah that you you nailed it megan mccardle you know that they were not doing a nazi salute and elon was doing a razi salute again it's not just that he had his arm in the same final position of a nazis salute that that's not it if that were the case there's a lot of things that you could just say were nazi salutes you know it's about the nazi salute he did he did it he did exactly exactly the full motion of the nazi salute there people are putting a side to side of actual nazis doing the salute and it's pixel perfect like he's doing it it is what he's going to do it's not an innocent thing that was misinterpreted he's doing it there's no there isn't any other thing that's that there is no such thing as a my heart goes out to you, Nazi salute. Doesn't exist. You're making it up. She thinks she has this own by saying, I remember someone who was at that wedding doesn't realize their arm has been in that roughly that's yeah. Everyone's arm has probably been in that position. The final position is this person stupid or a liar? I just, I don't know. It's hard to know. And that seems like the question I have to ask about everybody nowadays. Are you the fucking stupidest person in the world? Or are you just a liar? I don't know. I don' t know. I actually wasn' t even planning on reading this but it's so dumb. I can' t stop. It' s almost done but this is so good. It actually, I think this part is important. So it continues if you remember it. The last thing I read you was the, you know, the own over the other person who was at the wedding. The two things aren' t connected in their mind. Then she goes on. Yet this is why so many people have stories about the time we did something perfectly innocuous that looked like something unspeakably awful. Do so many of us have stories? Okay. It's a context slip. We, or the minister, focused on what we were doing in one context and forgot how it would look to someone who didn't know what we Were thinking. Take a decidedly non -racist acquaintance. Here we go. I can't, I'm just hearing that. You must be really excited for the example. You ready? Take a decidely non - racist, a decidedLY non -Racist acquaintence. Let me pick one of my more non - Racist ones. I just left that sentence right there. Take Take a decidedly non -racist acquaintance who is throwing a last minute Halloween. I promise you, he's not one of my racist friends. This is one of the least racist ones that I have. Last minute Halloween costume together, guys. You ready? From materials he had handy. A new white sheet set. Eschewing the cliche toga, he decides to dress up as a ghost. Only the sheet wasn't quite long enough when it draped over his head. So he reached for the pillowcase and belatedly discovered from the stunned silence of his his fellow party goers, that he had inadvertently dressed up as a Klansman. Yeah, who among us? This is, God, can't argue with this logic, ready? This is how I can believe that Musk made a similar cognitive error. Oh boy, yeah, very similar. He was just gonna dress up as an Nazi, doing a Nazi salute, and then forgot, oh wait, I'm gonna do a Nazi, I don't know, there's, what is the similar part he didn't there's not it's not even similar in your own dumb example because it would be like he decided preempt like premeditatively to do something which is your example but he didn'T like your earlier he it was being defended as like a spur -of -the -moment not thinking awkward thing and now it's being defended als a premeditated thing that just he just didn'T realize how it would look which okay it's kind of two different things but whatever And then she says this, if you watch the longer video of Musk's speech, not a strategically edited clip that went viral, you'll see he made other awkward gestures and, you know, other salutes to different hate groups, too. It wasn't just the one Nazi salute. And that that may just be how he moves when he's excited. OK, I'm going to pause there because the next thing is so fucking stupid. But if you click on the clip the link it's literally just the clip of him doing it like normally when you're like oh it's a strategically edited clip you'd be like oh they put different parts together in a way that made something seem worse but this is this is just the part where he did the salute if you if you only look at the part Where He Did The Nazi Salute then yeah that looks bad but if You Look At The Whole Video Then There's Lots Of Time Where He's not doing it? I don't like, what even is this argument? She's saying that like, oh, if what's being hidden by this strategically edited clip, it's just a clip, man. It's just like, because you're not going to link the whole video. You're going to linked the part that matters. It is not strategically edited. What are you talking about? In other parts, he does do other awkward things. No one's going to argue he's not awkward, but just look at the Nazi salute he did. It It's very clear. And he does it again. He does it Again, the video that she links is actually the deceptive one. And I don't mean it's like someone made it deceptively, but the second salute he does was not captured in that video. So she sends a video where the second one is not captured because the camera cuts away. But if you look at a different version that actually doesn't cut away in that moment, which is that's not part of Elon Musk. Like that's just a decision that one, I don't know, video channel made, like one news channel made versus another. If you look at one that doesn't cut away, he does it again. He does two Nazi salutes. So like the one that's more deceptive is actually your video that only has the one. Because if it's one, you could say, oh, he's just awkward. He accidentally, if it'S two, it's like pretty intentional. All right. And here's where we get to thing I actually, we do need to talk about. Here's the next sentence. Ready? Musk has said he is mildly autistic, and even high -functioning autistic people struggle with reading and sending accurate social cues. Yeah, you know, sometimes, you don't know how autistic people, they sometimes send that wrong social cue. They send the one where they're a Nazi. It's just, whoops, mixed up my cues. This idea that autism has anything the fuck to do with this is so outrageous. Ages. It's getting really, really frustrating, especially as I'm pretty certain that one of my children who I've talked about on Dear Old Dads has autism. It does make you more aware of how the world views autistic people. And it also makes you worry a lot, a lot more. And one thing that is incredibly disturbing is Elon's autism is brought up. I don't know anything about it. I always brought up when he's done something fucking horrible so that like that's what people think autism is and also here's here's the ultimate I know irony is too light a word here's the ultimate just like horrible bullshit about this the things elon does that are horrible are not because of autism they're because he's a fucking asshole and yet every time people want to explain away what he does they point to his autism so it's like a double whammy where like Like, the autism actually isn't that, and you're revealing that you think autism equals, like, doing Nazi salutes and countless other really, really awful things that he does. I could go on about that forever, but let's suffice to say, fuck all that. Now she goes on. Now the obvious rejoinder is that I'm not considering the context. We don't need to wonder whether the progressives at that wedding were secret Nazis, but progressives do wonder about the guy with a penchant for trolling who lets racist junk on his social media platform and openly supports Germany's far -right AFD party, on the other hand. Yeah, man. Did you write that paragraph? I almost feel like the editor was like, well, I need to put in this paragraph of very obvious counterpoints. And then she just like barely hand waves it away. But yeah, that's a very, very obvious distinction that undermines everything you've already said. Now, the obvious rejoinder is that the progressives were at a wedding and they weren't doing Nazi things. So there's that. Yeah, man. And she understates it too. Okay. Here's the next part. Yet hanging out with Benjamin Netanyahu, that is hyperlinked, and trying to talk Kanye West out of his anti -Semitic delusions, and that's hyperlink, seems like odd behavior for a Nazi. If you want to put Musk's action in context, you need to use all the context, not just the part that tells a neat story starring Elon Musk as the villain. Oh, boy. So here's what she's describing as the mitigating context for Elon Musk. Hanging out with Benjamin Netanyahu and trying, she says, trying to talk Kanye West out of his anti -Semitic delusions. Here's what that hyperlink leads to. Here's the headline. Elon Musk says he expressed concerns to Kanye West over anti -Semitic tweet, which I think he took to heart. But like, you got to look at a little bit more detail because the tweet, the tweet and I'm sorry, but the tweet was, I'm going to go death con, death con. I'm going to death con three on Jewish people. That was the tweet. And Musk said he, quote, expressed my concerns about his recent tweet, which I think he took to heart. Well, that settles that. No anti -Semitic racist or Nazi person could ever express concerns about a tweet that says I'm going to go death con three on Jewish people. Impossible. That is the weakest fucking shit. Weakest fucking shit instead of some of my best friends are Jewish people, it's some of My Best Friends are people I've expressed concerns about their genocidal anti -Semitic tweeting. That's not like the defense that you think it is, Megan McArdle. And what's so amazing, okay, the other one, hanging out with Benjamin Netanyahu is her other link, but that ignores the context of the, do you remember why he was doing that? I mean, there's a lot of reasons, but do you remember why specifically he was doing that it was because Elon had just liked a tweet that was incredibly anti -fucking Semitic and was trying to cover for it. The same with people who keep referencing, well, he visited Auschwitz. You're referencing the damage control he did after his last anti -Semitic controversy as proof that he's not anti -Semitic. What? What? It's like if a celebrity was caught in blackface and then like shook hands with a black person afterwards as a photo op. And then you just said later, like a year later, you're like, they can't be racist. Here's them shaking hands with the black person. Yeah. Why were they doing that? Like, why was Elon Musk hanging out with Netanyahu? Why was he visiting Auschwitz with Ben Shapiro? Why was He doing those things? It's weird that you didn't put that in your opinion piece, Megan McArdle. Was it because, and I forgot, it wasn't that he liked the tweet. He tweeted, you have said the actual truth to someone else who said, okay, Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of dialectical hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them. I'm deeply disinterested in giving the tiniest shit now about Western Jewish populations coming to the disturbing realization that those hordes of minorities that support flooding their country don't exactly like them too much. You want the truth said to your face, there it is. And Elon Musk said, you have said the actual truth. And then he said, and that same thread, and this is, I just caught this now, this will be relevant. Elon Musk says, the ADL unjustly attacks the majority of the West, despite the majorityof the West supporting the Jewish people in Israel. This is because they cannot, by their own tenets, criticize the minority groups who are are their primary threat. It is not right and needs to stop. The minority group. What? Wow. Elon really said that didn't get as much scrutiny back then. It was mainly the you have said the actual truth one. And you can see it has way more views. But he's saying Elon Musk in 2023, this is November 15th, 2023, is saying that the reason the ADL attacks the majority of the West is because they're too afraid to criticize minority groups who are their primary threat. I guess he must mean like Muslims or something. I don't know what else he would mean. But like, I got news for you about the ADL. They actually do go after those groups. They go after, there's an article from 2019 about how they have a history of going after black leaders way disproportionately and other things. The ADL sucks. They absolutely suck. And they sucked before October 7th. Now it's a joke, an absolute joke. But I guess they didn't remember or didn't care about this old spat or at least attacks by Elon on Twitter back then because now they are defending it. They put out an absolute joke, an absolutely joke of a defense of Elon Musk. I mean, it's just what a world we live in. I just, I, I can't, how did we get here? Like immediately after they, they bleeded or skated or tweeted. I don't know. This is a delicate moment. It's a new day. And yet so many are on edge and yet so Many on earth, what? Our politics are inflamed and social media only adds to the anxiety. It seems that Elon Musk made an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute. But again, we appreciate that people are on edge. In this moment, all sides should give one another a bit of grace, perhaps even the benefit of the doubt, and take a breath. This is a new beginning. Let's hope for healing and work toward unity in the months and years ahead. Yeah, this is the ADL, the same organization that ever since October 7th has decided everything is an anti -Semitic incident. And obviously, among legitimate ones, sure, of course. But in addition to legitimate anti -Semitism, they also decided to count anything that's against Zionism, anything that doesn't support Israel or bashes Israel as somehow anti -SEMITIC, which is just not the case. I mean, it's a country. I could conceivably see a context in which that could be anti -Semitic, but they've become so unreliable that Wikipedia, actually a group of Wikipedia moderators, voted to label them as generally unreliible on the Israel -Palestine conflict. Conflict and it said there's also going to be a vote about it being unreliable on the topic of antisemitism but it's now uh not to be cited the adl should not be cited in wikipedia articles on that topic except for under extraordinary circumstances um yeah so the adr has become so dedicated to supporting israel at this time uh you know while it's doing a genocide side that it that that's to the exclusion of all else I mean elon musk who has a history of antisemitism who does a nazi salute which under any other circumstances would go in the adl's list of antisemitic incidents for the year guaranteed is like oh let's all calm down you know why because the trump administration is incredibly friendly to israel and is the best chance of Israel continuing their genocide.

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0:38:14 Thomas: Okay, but resetting for a moment. Like I said, the gesture is not open for debate. It's a Nazi salute. It just is. Why he did it, I have my theories, but that's obviously up for debate, is he just trolling? Is he like actually a Nazi and wants to subtly signal to the other very much Nazis that are in the Republican Party? Party. I don't know. I feel like it's probably a troll, as I started to say earlier. I think he is anti -Semitic. I Think he's, he's proven it. He's horribly racist, anti -Semitic. He is a bigot in many ways. And I think, he knows this is just a win -win -win for Elon Musk. I mean, he can troll us in his mind. He can gaslight us. He Can start that conversation of gaslighting. Hey, not for for nothing. Like non -zero chance. This is also just gets them totally out of the, he's a fake gamer news cycle. Like none zero chance. I don't know. That's a little, that might be a little bit too cute, but I wouldn't put it past him. You know, like that was such a bad news cycle for him. And then he's like, all right, here's what I'll do. I will make sure that is not the dominant news cycle at all. And it has, it's pretty much disappeared at least for the last however many many hours. So there's a type of person I've witnessed too, that, that wants to talk about this as us falling into Elon's trap. Are we falling in? Are we following into his genius trial? Man, he's such a genius. See what he does is a sick Heil. And then we say, Hey, that was a sick Heil bam. Got us. I don't really, this way of thinking is just really puzzling to me. I of saying the Nazi salute he did was a Nazi salute. What's the alternative? We just don't say that? Like, everybody agrees that we didn't see it? And then what does that even accomplish? Like, yeah, you might look at Elon and the MAGA crowd delighting in trying to gaslight us right now. You might look it that as, like, oh, no, that's them winning or something. Thing. But is it? How are they winning? I mean, it's it's incredible that some people think this is the way it has to happen. Like somehow it's always on us. It's always on the left to like react in some different way that's going to stop the fascism and stop the trolling and stop the gaslighting. And that'll that'll fix it. I have no idea why anyone would think that. But I'm seeing them. I'm seeing people talking to me saying we got to stop falling for these traps. What's the trap? All it does is a, I mean, Elon's getting a lot of heat for this. Like a bunch of subreddits have blocked all links to Twitter now. Um, like, like a lot of them, not just like a handful, like significant number of them. Um. How much does that affect him? I don't know, but it can't be good. Can't be good for his bottom line. It, and genuinely there are fortunately still still people in this country who realize that nazis are bad somehow it's a dwindling group but I think there's a lot of normies who are like what he did a nazi salute like I've seen a lot of comments on subreddits that aren't political that are like what is happening like everybody's talking about it and a lot I'm seeing a lot of comments the effect of of like I just watched the full video and wow wow, he actually did do it. Like some people were like, ah, I just assumed it was, you know, exaggeration or, you Know, like just out of context, whatever. But if you actually watch the video, it's undeniable. And so a bunch of people who I don't think are like particularly political. I mean, I'm talking mainstream subreddits that have nothing to do with politics that are debating this issue of shutting down Twitter links. And a lot of them have, have and a lot of the comments are like this is unreal he's a nazi he did like it's it's this is not good for him I mean I I don't don't get me wrong I'm not saying that is the end for elon I'm just saying it's not good für him it's nicht helping him he so this idea that like this is some expertly laid trap that that the left just we're so dumb we keep seeing things and and then saying what they are, idiots. If only we could all coordinate to not see things and say what they are. That's just stupid. That's useless advice. But here's the other thing. In terms of that being this expert troll and this trap that he's laid for us, there is no trick. The trick would be, ah, I'm doing, like, if he's really just doing the trolling route, like if we're assuming he's just doing the trolling gaslighting route, the trick would be he's baiting us into calling him a Nazi when he's not actually Nazi. And that, that, the trap would be like, that's going to threaten our credibility. It's going to undermine us, I guess. But what should our reaction be? Like, what is it to not fall into that quote unquote trap? Because I thought about this right when this happened. And after thinking about, I mean, I've long since said, a lot of people have long said ironic Nazis are still Nazis essentially. And I totally, I totally that's essentially the point I'm about to make. But I think I, in my mind, I think I put a finer point on it, which is take a step back and think what it means that Elon Musk or anyone is trying to get you to think that he's a Nazi. Like, imagine being comfortable with a non -zero group of people thinking you're a Nazi, that's evil. That's like going, I mean, imagine Imagine if I went near my kid's school and I was like, oh, I'm going to do a great I'm going to make the teachers think that I'm a pedophile, but I'm not, though. But I'm gonna like I'm to make it. I'm like, I mean, it'll be unclear, but I'm gonna make it seem like I have a pedofile and then I'm hanging around these kids like the joke is like, I'm not I'm not dangerous at all. So they're idiots for like being worried and for saying something like that's jokes on eggs on their face. It's like no you're scaring people like you're you're telling me that being okay being perceived as a nazi you're that you're the richest arguably most powerful person on the earth right now elon musk arguably I think maybe xi jinping of china maybe that's maybe maybe president of china may maybe more powerful because that is possibly, but I don't know. Elon Musk, very plausibly, the most powerful person in the world right now. And do you think it's cool to make people think even, even just as a goof, ha ha, the most powerfully powerful person on planet earth is a Nazi. That's not cool. There there's, there's no, there're no goof there. There's no prank. There's no joke. That's just you doing a bad thing. There isn't a gotcha. So when I thought of that, I was realizing like, this isn't even a matter of interpretation. It's, it's really not. And I mean that beyond the fact that it's just not even open for interpretation is a Nazi salute, but the factthat he's doing this at all and that he's not clarifying, he's not coming out and saying, oh shit, people, people thought I was a Nazi. Wow. I could see yeah, that would be pretty horrifying to think the most powerful person in the world, uh, is a Nazi. That would be, imagine if you were, you know, any sort of minority group, uh. Historically, not, Nazis were not great. Uh. I'll tell you historically. Um. Imagine the fear that creates. Sorry about that. Or even, even if you don't want to apologize because you're a narcissistic piece of shit, like Elon is, incapable of apology. You could at least be like, that's, I'm not that. You know like you just just say you could even just say it he didn't even do that he just said like oh the new game is call everyone hitler it's a new game didn't hear a no dude did not hear no so the fact that he is allowing people to believe this and in my opinion this is intentional he is trying to do this he's trying to this is a little little trap he thinks he's setting but that is the The bad thing that he's doing says there's no trick. There's no tricks. He's doing a bad thing. And people are saying you're doing a bad thing was what's the gotcha. There's gotcha allowing being okay with people believing you're a Nazi is not the own that that he thinks it is. It's just someone being really evil and and not caring at all about hurting people. That's not an own, man. That's a trap. You just suck. You just really, really suck a lot. I guess the last thing I thought of that I want to say for now is that like, I get that the mainstream media has to do this thing where they pretend things don't exist. I mean, I say I get it. I don't get it, but I will recognize that the world we live in means that quote -unquote prestigious mainstream media, I just had this thought, you can identify them because they're the ones who don't say what a thing is. Like, I wasn't very articulate, but like, I Just realized, oh, the people who are like the, you know, the me's of the world, well, that's a horrible insult, not the mees of the whole, but like the independent media sources, even like big independent media sources that they're the ones who say what the reality is so like a thing happens and you look at the landscape of news like you just on google news or whatever it is and the headlines that are lying about what happened are that's the way you check if that's like the quote -unquote legitimate news source isn't that weird and it's how our minds work. Like if just picture a headline, picture a headline right now, you're just looking at a news source, Google News, some aggregator, and you see one headline that is Elon Musk does Nazi salute, which is objectively speaking what happened. And you see another headline that says Elon Musk's questionable gesture stirs controversy. And right away, you know, oh, that's either the New York Times, the Washington Post or CNN or, you know, it's some like quote unquote quote legitimate legacy media source. And the way you know is because they're the ones whose headlines are essentially the headline version of la la la not listening. No, no, I don't see that. Not I don't see it. La la la. Nope. I didn't hear it. Yeah, I didn't see IT. I didn't hear IT. I DON'T know. No, I DON'T know. I DON'T KNOW. I DON'T KNOW ANYTHING. I KNOW NOTHING. I KNOW ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Just it was a gesture. I CAN'T say what it was. It was a controversial, weird gesture. And I see that it's controversy. But I don't know anything else beyond that. Isn't that just fucking weird? It's just weird. How did we get here? How did we get here that like they're doing, you know, it's like the cargo cult version of journalism or of objectivity. That has nothing to do with objectivity, but it's just the trappings of object objectivity and no matter what happens, it's very, this is blowing my mind. Maybe I'm too high except that I'm not I don't have the luxury of ever getting high but it's almost like this smoke a joint thought of like just on a very abstract level like you could have literally headlines and not see like I could cover with like a piece of paper or something I could cover the source so you can't see it you could just look at the headline and you would know which ones are the quote unquote quote, good media, the, like the solid, good legacy, objective journalists, because they're the ones not saying fucking anything. It's so weird. And we look at that in our brains still to this day, we're like, well, there's the good news source. I need to click on the good news source that goes, I don't know. I don'T KNOW NOTHING. I DON'T KNOW. Yeah. But isn't it obviously a Nazi SIG Heil? I don't know. I don't know. I'm not going to spy. I'm, I'm. I'm a snitch. Like they're almost like a mobster. That's like refusing to talk to the cops, man. I've just thought of like 14 funny TikTok ideas that I don'T have time to do, but it's pretty much is that they're like, well, but look at this New York times. Look at this picture here. That's a like pixel for pixel comparison. It's exactly a Nazi Sig Heil. I don't know. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Well, is it a SIG Heil? I'm not answering that. I don' t know. You tell me. Well, but New York Times, you're the news though. Can you just tell me, was it a Nazi SIG Heil ? I'm not saying nothing. I mean, it's just, that's what it is. And then if you see a headline that's like, Elon Musk did a Nazi thing, essentially, then you know it's like quote quote unquote, the less legitimate opinion-y stuff that we don't count as news.

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0:52:24 Thomas: Here's what I'll say. Imagine this headline. Like, you could do a version of this that satisfies enough of the, you know, the weird objectivity stuff you're doing, but it's still truthful. You could say this. The headline could be, Elon Musk makes gesture identical to Nazi Sig Heil. And then you could use the jack off shit. But controversy around what the actual intent was. That's still a hundred percent describes it and is much more accurate. Elon Musk stirs controversy over hand gesture. That's, that's not fucking accurate, dude. So what, he flipped someone off. Did he, did he do the, from like the musical grease, the hand jive thing? Is that that one? I don't know why I thought of that. Like just controversial gestures. Did he do like devil horns? Did he, you know, like that's not descriptive enough. It doesn't tell you anything. It is just cowardice. That's, it's not objectivity. It's fucking cowardice, that's all it is. It' s worse journalism. I know less, I know, less, not more, I no less from reading your headline than I would just a truthful one. And again, you could even say, like, you could even leave out, don't ascribe intent. I get that. I get dat. You're the news. You usually don't do that. I get, sometimes you do, but like, usually you don't. Um, so, but you could say, Elon Musk's gesture was identical to a SIG Heil. That's fact, that's just factually true. It was identical. From there, we could have an argument about, like you, you could do your New York Times, Washington Post thing, whatever. You could do, you're like, but But critics say it was defenders say it was a misunderstanding, you know, whatever. Fine. Do your both sides bullshit, but that's more accurate and still fits in your stupid definition of objective journalism that I don't even think is a good thing. I don'T think the way they do it is good. I think it is bad and needs adjusting. Sorry. I just, I was going to end it, but I just thought like, I just glanced. I saw Musk's straight arm gesture embraced by right-wing extremists. And I love that because, oh, a straight arm gesture. Is he doing the Heisman pose? Straight arm gesture, okay. All right, well, I hope you got something out of this. Just one of those times that I just, I can't keep it in. I just... What fucking year is it, everybody? Just unreal. Yeah. Thank you so much for listening. Seriously, thank you so much for supporting. Please consider supporting and sharing. It really helps, and, you know, it's a tough, tough, freaking time out there, so any help is appreciated from the bottom of my heart, and thank you so much, and we'll be back soon with some non-Trumpy, I promise, non-trumpy stuff, science-y stuff with Jenessa. I already got a recording there, so don't worry. It's not, this is, it just, sometimes I just gotta talk. I can't, I don't, I'm gonna burst. All right, thank you, so much for listening. See you around.