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As a German, it's both. The blatant power grab made him very unpopular anyway (though he was already seen as a person of low character by most who read about th

As a German, it's both. The blatant power grab made him very unpopular anyway (though he was already seen as a person of low character by most who read about the cave diver who he falsely accused of being a pedophile [0]). However, the Nazi salute was plainly absurd, and elicited a much more emotional response. I know that on this site there are many who defend him in this instance, either because they think "Germans should get over their guilt", or because they have fallen for picture comparisons with other politicians instead of looking at the videos [1]. The latter is just people falling for propaganda, nothing too interesting there. The former is of course a tempting viewpoint for those who have not had the same education about the holocaust that the average German receives, and looks in from the outside without understanding that it's not "guilt", or even a unique German burden that we put on ourselves. Instead, many of us (myself included) believe that it's the duty of all people, not just Germans, to make sure fascism doesn't rise again. We don't have a bigger duty, we just have more knowledge about it on average, so many of us tend to care more. Sorry about the long diatribe here, I just wanted to get that out of the way because it always seems to come up anyway (and in fact did in another thread I read just minutes ago). [0] https://web.archive.org/web/20180719123811/https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-44870303 https://web.archive.org/web/20180719123811/https://www.bbc.c... [1] https://youtu.be/MXeG_mmXZGE https://youtu.be/MXeG_mmXZGE

polotics 2y ago
As I understand it the salute was a calculated move to prevent a split of the MAGA crowd between the H1B-immigration-push top-hats and the no-immigrants-anywhere bottom-crowd. Nothing like a large gesture to distract the plebs both in and out of the echo-bubble. And the fact that there so many occurences of the number 88 in Tesla's prices, test-speeds, anywhere an arbitrary two-digit value can be inserted, well, it's plausibly deniable right?
- rightbyte 2y ago
  Seems optimistic to assume some sort of rationality.
- rstuart4133 2y ago
  Plausible. But is this just post rationalising, or do you have some evidence it was planned before the gesture?
mytailorisrich 2y ago
> The former is of course a tempting viewpoint for those who have not had the same education about the holocaust that the average German receives, and looks in from the outside without understanding that it's not "guilt", or even a unique German burden that we put on ourselves. He did raise a valid point that has been raised before, that is actually widely known, and that is specifically German, and it has little to do with "make sure fascism doesn't rise again". It's just that because he said it it is spun like crazy. You can call it guilt, you can call it castration (and there is a bit of both), you can call it moving from one extreme to another (and I think your "we don't have a bigger duty" is somewhat illustrative), you can call it what you want, but it is true that the spectre of WWII and of the Nazi period has a huge influence to this day in Germany and not necessarily for the better (from a German POV). It shows, for example in how meek Germany is with using its military, or in their immigration policy, most 'infamously' Merkel's open door policy in 2015 (which has spectacularly backfired since), etc. It's worth highlighting that guilt is not the same as rememberance.

polotics 2y ago

As I understand it the salute was a calculated move to prevent a split of the MAGA crowd between the H1B-immigration-push top-hats and the no-immigrants-anywhere bottom-crowd. Nothing like a large gesture to distract the plebs both in and out of the echo-bubble. And the fact that there so many occurences of the number 88 in Tesla's prices, test-speeds, anywhere an arbitrary two-digit value can be inserted, well, it's plausibly deniable right?

rightbyte 2y ago
Seems optimistic to assume some sort of rationality.
rstuart4133 2y ago
Plausible. But is this just post rationalising, or do you have some evidence it was planned before the gesture?

mytailorisrich 2y ago

> The former is of course a tempting viewpoint for those who have not had the same education about the holocaust that the average German receives, and looks in from the outside without understanding that it's not "guilt", or even a unique German burden that we put on ourselves. He did raise a valid point that has been raised before, that is actually widely known, and that is specifically German, and it has little to do with "make sure fascism doesn't rise again". It's just that because he said it it is spun like crazy. You can call it guilt, you can call it castration (and there is a bit of both), you can call it moving from one extreme to another (and I think your "we don't have a bigger duty" is somewhat illustrative), you can call it what you want, but it is true that the spectre of WWII and of the Nazi period has a huge influence to this day in Germany and not necessarily for the better (from a German POV). It shows, for example in how meek Germany is with using its military, or in their immigration policy, most 'infamously' Merkel's open door policy in 2015 (which has spectacularly backfired since), etc. It's worth highlighting that guilt is not the same as rememberance.