The mainstream press failed to accurately describe the hand gesture that Elon Musk made twice at Trump’s Inauguration Day rally, setting a troubling precedent for the second Trump era.

148 points

Apologies to whoever originally posted this I downloaded it earlier today

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11 points

Luigi Mangione made an odd-looking gesture towards a CEO.

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58 points

It is a fun activity to think of legal standards here. Of course we don’t know what he was thinking for sure, and we never will, just like everyone else in the world every day of our lives. But we can and do judge people by their actions… In other words, where do people want to put this Nazi salute? What is their certainty about his action? Below are the legal standards.

  • Reasonable suspicion
  • Probable cause
  • Preponderance of evidence (more likely than not)
  • Clear and convincing
  • Proof beyond a reasonable doubt

Where would you rank the Nazi salute conclusion? I think proof beyond reasonable doubt, and perhaps we could reasonably debate claims that it’s a level or two weaker than that. But the deniers, they want to say there’s not even reasonable suspicion, and that is a sad joke.

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46 points

If it was something that came out of the blue, I might be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, but the man follows, regularly retweets and converses with actual (as in, they call themselves that) Nazis on Twitter.

It just shows that the mainstream media (and the ADL) aren’t really interested in the truth.

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17 points

It was a Nazi salute without a doubt. The only question is if it was accidental or intentional. Musk being a far-right operative and making a bunch of Nazi puns as his response instead of an apology for the misunderstanding makes it clear it was not an accident.

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1 point
*

I’m pretty sure what you mentioned are principles used in courts of law. As a rule, journalists can and should call a spade a spade. They don’t need to prove beyond reasonable doubt what he was thinking.

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56 points

Yeah, I think I wholeheartedly agree with the Die Zeit journalist. If a right-wing person does a Hitler salute in front of a right wing audience… It’s probably a Hitler salute… Context matters and it’s not like Musk usually shares left-wing perspective on his platform. We know for a fact whom and what he sympathizes with…

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56 points

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13 points

I don’t disagree with your point but at least half of America isn’t reading any of those sources and instead live on major tv network and they’re the ones talking about the ‘gesture’

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52 points

The thing that my stomach drop is the crowd cheered. Not a shocked intake of breath or booing. They cheered. He did a sieg heil and they cheered it. If you cheer a Nazi doing Nazi things, you’re also a Nazi. The US has a Nazi infestation. Even if they get another remotely fair election to correct this, it won’t be accepted, again, and insurrection2 will have been prepared for, for 5 years. I feel that sieg heil of the richest person on earth marked the end of American democracy.

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10 points

Republicans will never accept another election if a Democrat wins. This is our future, where every election they lose is contested. That is, if we have another election. I think we’re heading to a pseudo democracy like Russia, where they can vote but Putin always wins in a landslide.

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6 points

To be honest, I don’t see them allowing a vote to go against them. It is if this shit can hold together without Trump. He’s old and doesn’t do diet or exercise. He’s the linchpin of it.

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1 point

The heritage Foundation is trying to make Trump play the part of the anti Christ in the book of revelation. They need him there for 7.5 years i think. Im not sure if this includes his first term or not. They might just decide to go ahead with the lake of fire part in 3.5 years.

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