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My grandparents were pretty WASPy, conservative people who lived in northern Idaho. And they hated the white supremacist/neonazi groups up there with a burning

by davidw 6mo ago

My grandparents were pretty WASPy, conservative people who lived in northern Idaho. And they hated the white supremacist/neonazi groups up there with a burning passion. They were of an age to remember people going off to fight in Germany and Asia against that kind of ideology. They would have been absolutely appalled and ashamed to see a business leader throwing those salutes and backing it up with talk of a "white homeland" and similar comments. I find it deeply dismaying that people consider that "just politics" or that opposing it is "ideological". We can argue all day about the proper rate of corporate taxation or debate the best way to implement environmental regulations, and I will not consider you a bad person if you disagree with me. But the kind of crap coming out of that guy? That's beyond politics.

highmastdon 6mo ago
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- SimianSci 6mo ago
  Your comment on vagueness misses its mark. > business leader throwing those salutes and backing it up with talk of a "white homeland" It is not every commenter's duty to cite their sources when you have the ability to easily infer the context and search the internet. These are very well documented actions that they refer to. Your attempts to drive sentiment through casting doubt are noticed.
- alterom 6mo ago
  >What do you mean _exactly_? Covering your statement is a shroud of vagueness doesn’t help form an opinion, only infuse more polarisation Oh come on. Everyone who's been paying attention enough to warrant having opinions on the subject knows what the reference is to. But if you just came out of a cryogenic freeze, they're talking about: 1. Elon Musk appearing to be giving a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration [1] 2. Elon Musk espousing and propagating white supremacist views nearly on a daily basis[2] 3. Elon Musk openly supporting borderline Neo-Nazi[3][4] German AfD party[5] 4. Elon Musk promulgating the myth of "white genocide"[6] I guess if you somehow missed all of that over the past few years, you wouldn't know what the parent comment is about. But in that case, you shouldn't be taking a part in this conversation, or opining about what would "infuse[sic] more polarisation". [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk... [3] https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2024-07-31/frontline-investigates-the-rise-of-the-neo-nazi-afd-party-in-germany https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2024-07-31/frontline-... [4] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dangerous-liaisons-the-true-proximity-of-germany-s-afd-to-neo-nazis-a-e69c51d3-4b3c-49d2-8d54-d7b0a19c3f9a https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dangerous-liais... [5] https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/europe/elon-musk-germany-afd-protests-intl-latam https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/europe/elon-musk-germany-afd-... [6] https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0lhfn68 https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0lhfn68 [3]
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holmesworcester 6mo ago
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- ryandrake 6mo ago
  Anyone who doesn't think what Musk did was a Nazi salute, I encourage you to watch the video over and over, enough times so that you can memorize and replicate it, then go into work and do it in front of your manager, and see what happens. Of course, as expected, the Elon Musk Defense League showed up right on time. Does he give out $100 for every post defending his honor online?
  - mindslight 6mo ago
    "Oh, I must have missed seeing you at the corporate retreat! Put yourself on my calendar so we can talk about your promotion."
  - ceejayoz 6mo ago
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    - holmesworcester 6mo ago
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  - fooey 6mo ago
    he literally paraphrased the 14 words after doing it "It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured." it's an absolute joke anyone disputes what he did
  - holmesworcester 6mo ago
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ryandrake 6mo ago
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deleted 6mo ago
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cozyman 6mo ago
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quantified 6mo ago
Well, all of these are politics and ideology. It's OK to have an ideological bent of some sort or other. You can indeed be highly intolerant of those who are intolerant in certain ways. You can hate certain kinds of hate. And you can call out greedy callous bastards wherever you see them. It's basically being discerning.
- r-w 6mo ago
  GP is saying neo-Nazis are "not just politics, but also something worse". You're not really disagreeing with them, maybe just missing their point about some ideologies being worthy of planned exclusion from a civilized society. Aka the paradox of tolerance. That's what makes some political stances "not just politics".
  - Terr_ 6mo ago
    I find a lot of the paradox-ness goes away when one look at such arrangements a peace-treaties. (Or at least, it gets subsumed into a broader set of respective and respectable dilemmas.) For example, just because Country A "wants peace" doesn't mean they do nothing as Country B gets taken over by a revanchists regime declaring the treaty evil and massing troops the borders. It would be ridiculous (and depressingly realistic) for some critics to say: "They don't really want peace, or else they would be a nation of pacifists who would let themselves get annexed right now without bloodshed.)
    - sigmarule 6mo ago
      I view this paradox as just an effect of poor framing. We should not look at it as “I am against intolerance/hatred/XYZ”, but “I want to minimize intolerance/hatred/XYZ.” The first focuses on local, case-by-case contexts, the latter in aggregate. Some XYZs, in some contexts, have properties that make them effective local tools to mitigate themselves in an aggregate context, which is probably a better candidate paradox here.
bluebarbet 6mo ago
But since when did using a business's product come to require sharing (or not sharing) political views with the business's owner? Seems to me that this is what has changed. PS. It's amazing to me, and worrying, the anger and vituperation this position is provoking. It was once almost consensus. To take the obvious parallel, buying a newspaper did not imply agreement with the reactionary press baron who owned it.
- etchalon 6mo ago
  No one would say they used "David Duke's Whites Only Car Wash" but "didn't support the owner's politics."
  - habinero 6mo ago
    It's always amazing how much that kind of person will pretend not to get it, and whine about being a pariah.
  - weirdmantis69 6mo ago
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- iwontberude 6mo ago
  The conflict seems as old as ever. Labor vs union-busting robber baron.
- woodruffw 6mo ago
  Most people hold a set of political views, while also admitting a spectrum of competing views into their personal, financial, etc. lives. For the average person, doing business with a neo-Nazi (or someone who is "merely" neo-Nazi adjacent) exceeds that spectrum. This is eminently reasonable, and has not changed significantly in a long time.
- pavlov 6mo ago
  In the case of X, the business owner is aggressively pushing his political views on users by heavy-handed methods like prioritizing his own posts in algorithmic feeds and overriding the context of his AI bot to parrot his pet ideas. If you went to a restaurant and it had Confederate flags and pro-slavery memorabilia on the walls, would you think: “Well, that’s just their political view, I don’t have to share it to eat here?”
deleted 6mo ago
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pirate787 6mo ago
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- mullingitover 6mo ago
  It's grossly dishonest to conflate a complexion with an ethnicity. 'White' is a complexion, not a culture. For most of the past five centuries, the people you're lumping into this thing called 'white' would've considered it fighting words to do so.
  - pirate787 6mo ago
    Part of the replacement is declaring white Americans don't have a culture. Would you say the same about black Americans?
    - mullingitover 6mo ago
      There's no 'white' culture, there is modern North American culture and it's not something that belongs to a particular complexion. It's norms and traditions. These aren't remotely under threat of extinction from 'race mixing.' The things that are under threat are the contemporary cultural values of openness and acceptance of other cultures/relgions/traits. These are truly valuable, positive aspects that stand out in contemporary American and European societies, and these are the things that are legitimately under threat, ironically, by those who attempt to normalize racism and xenophobia.
      - matheusmoreira 6mo ago
        > There's no 'white' culture, there is modern North American culture and it's not something that belongs to a particular complexion. This doesn't seem right to me. WASP culture absolutely does exist. Anyone can see it in full display by watching films like Dead Poets Society or Home Alone.
    - Kallikrates 6mo ago
      no
Amezarak 6mo ago
Politics is all-encompassing. You don’t get to declare your beliefs privileged and above contestation. We always have to fight these battles.
stronglikedan 6mo ago
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supliminal 6mo ago
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dfadsadsf 6mo ago
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- bigyabai 6mo ago
  > Not sure their ideology was such a win. South Africa's transition away from being a nuclear apartheid state was an objective win for everyone, everywhere.
- huxley 6mo ago
  I personally am not interested in the bigots of previous generations making those decisions any more than I want contemporary ones to.
weirdmantis69 6mo ago
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- bzb 6mo ago
  My friend, please reflect on who in this exchange might be easily manipulated by clips on the internet.
  - weirdmantis69 6mo ago
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    - bzb 6mo ago
      Peace be with you.
- MaxL93 6mo ago
  They are very demonstrably not making the same movement and I strongly feel like it would take someone trying to reason backwards from a predetermined conclusion to see this
  - weirdmantis69 6mo ago
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    - Supermancho 6mo ago
      (better comparison) https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2026/01/02/hypocrisy-on-full-display-media-who-tore-into-elon-musk-ignore-when-mamdani-does-exact-same-thing-n2197711 https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2026/01/02/hypocrisy-on-full-di... They are not "exactly" the same. There's a symbolic reason you keep your hand flat, rigid, and parallel to the arm, in a salute.
    - deleted 6mo ago
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MetaWhirledPeas 6mo ago
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- davidw 6mo ago
  Here it is: https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338 https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338 That's just disgusting stuff. Gutter white nationalism.
  - MetaWhirledPeas 6mo ago
    I can't believe you're making me defend Tucker Carlson of all people, but he's pointing out that races should be treated equally. (Apparently in response to someone's statement he considered racist? I don't know or care enough to find out.) But at least I see where you're making the connection to the phrase "white homeland" even though neither of the people involved are calling for that. Thanks for the link.
    - deleted 6mo ago
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  - onetimeusename 6mo ago
    So in order to stop the next Nazis, promote racism against white people and then if they complain that is proof they were planning to become Nazis.
- ActivePattern 6mo ago
  He's most definitely talking about a white homeland [1][2] [1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1962406618886492245 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1962406618886492245 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration
- qyph 6mo ago
  https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338
slibhb 6mo ago
> I find it deeply dismaying that people consider that "just politics" or that opposing it is "ideological". We can argue all day about the proper rate of corporate taxation or debate the best way to implement environmental regulations, and I will not consider you a bad person if you disagree with me. But the kind of crap coming out of that guy? That's beyond politics. Elon's behavior is truly disgraceful, but spouting dumb shit is not "beyond politics".
- threatofrain 6mo ago
  You wish to lead with "dumb shit" in framing why people have a problem with Elon Musk? Why not lead with the Nazi salute at the presidential podium? That would more quickly get to the point.
  - slibhb 6mo ago
    Nazi salutes are protected speech and not "beyond politics". Yes it's disgraceful, and it's reasonable to leave his platform. But it qualifies as "dumb shit".
    - kenjackson 6mo ago
      Protected speech can be beyond politics. Politics doesn't subsume all protected speech.
    - cortesoft 6mo ago
      I think the point is to distinguish ‘political opinions that I am comfortable disagreeing with people about, and can still be friendly with people who strongly disagree with me’ and ‘morally unacceptable opinions that I will neither listen to nor associate with anyone who hold them’. There are many political opinions that I strongly believe in that I am comfortable disagreeing with people on. I believe everyone has a right to health care, and that society should guarantee basic necessities for everyone. I even feel that belief is a morality based belief. However, I can accept people disagreeing with me, and can accept that there are some strong arguments against my belief, and that good people can disagree with my position. On the other hand, if someone believes that certain races should not have the same rights, or that women should be given less agency than men, I will not entertain that argument or accept that it is just a political dispute. That is a fundamental moral issue, and is beyond JUST politics.
lasky 6mo ago
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- dyauspitr 6mo ago
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  - gortok 6mo ago
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    - selectively 6mo ago
      Truth. Unpopular here, but that is the truth.
    - tosapple 6mo ago
      [dead]
  - rustyhancock 6mo ago
    Ultimately this approach is what's lead us to a progressively rising right wing. If you refuse to engage in democratic systems you lose by default. I'm still not sure why Harris didn't fight to appear on JRE. Hilary Clinton made the same mistake. And the same mistakes are being made in Europe. If we turn our back on the voting population you have to accept that someone else who reaches out to them gets their vote.
    - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
      "losing by default" on elmu's "X" is actually totally okay > If we turn our back on the voting population I don't see how refusing to patronize 1 nazi is "turning your back on the voting population". Especially when the voting population doesn't like nazis. It's more like embracing the voting population.
      - temp8830 6mo ago
EngineerUSA 6mo ago
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- saila 6mo ago
  I'd suggest you dig a little deeper into American history. For example, "America First" isn't a new slogan. It's been used in its current sense for at least a century. Murdoch via Roger Ailes poured oil on the fire, but that was only possible because the sentiment already existed here and always has.
  - MonkeyIsNull 6mo ago
    Unfortunately this is true. Around a year, or two years ago the WaPo (back before it was a total shill, yes it was still bad but... you know) had an article about how all the rhetoric from the far right in the US was almost, word for word, what was said a little more than 100 years ago. It was downright scary. Some part of the US has _always_ been that way. Maybe someone can find the article.
  - shimman 6mo ago
    Seriously, our constitution was literally written to embolden a minority of slave owners and make sure that the people could not hold them accountable due to the structure of the government. It was always a colonial white nationalist state and it took a civil war + second founding before people weren't treated as property. It then took nearly another 100 years before all peoples in this country could vote. We're literally the first generation of Americans who grew up with nearly total emancipation + universal suffrage and we still have people fighting to bring back polling taxes and removing citizenship.
  - wwweston 6mo ago
    You’re right that this has always existed and at times even driven governance and society in the US. There’s also been times when other values more like what the GP implies have driven governance and social direction in the US. There was a side with values like that in the civil war. There was government and there were movements with those values for much of the 20th century especially following periods of national trial when it was clear we needed governing values that truly drove the common welfare. A lot of us grew up and are still living with the fruits of that. That’s the America we’ve known. We’ve also always known that there are many Americans who never bought in, who had a vision more like the other side of the civil war, or want welfare that’s a bit more unevenly distributed, perhaps not even distributed in some directions at all. It can still be a bit of a shock to find out that illiberal portion growing with a grip on a growing number of levers of power. Can the America with a vision of truly common welfare reassert itself? Maybe. Maybe not.
LastTrain 6mo ago
I live in Idaho I know loads of people and family who I would have bet would reject what is happening in today’s Republican Party but man was I wrong. With very few exceptions they gobble it up.
- romanhn 6mo ago
  North Idaho specifically has been a hub for white power movements for a while: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/27/north-idaho-and-spokane-have-been-a-historical-hot/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/27/north-idaho-an...
  - LastTrain 6mo ago
    Yes. In the 90's in particular. I'm old and I was in Idaho at the time. What I remember, and I try in vain to remind my conservative family and friends, is that both parties wanted that shit rode out of town on a rail back then. It is now the dominant world view in Idaho conservative politics. I will point to the "accomplishments" of our last legislative session as evidence.
    - davidw 6mo ago
      This is exactly what I'm talking about. My grandparents were no paragon of 'racial justice' but did they ever hate those Nazis. Back then, the Nazis were excluded from 'polite society' and had no hope of gaining power through normal democratic channels. That has changed.
      - bigbadfeline 6mo ago
        > That has changed. That was changed.
      - LastTrain 6mo ago
        Sure, so did my dad, and Idaho politicians who are still in office to this day. Guess what? They don’t hate Nazis any more. Well, they don’t hate Republicans acting like Nazis. If a Democrat were to throw a Nazi salute they’d be upset about that.
dyauspitr 6mo ago
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- dogemaster2027 6mo ago
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- pendenthistory 6mo ago
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  - teachrdan 6mo ago
    I'm going to assume good faith on your part, and that you're ignorant of specific things Elon has said and done in support of white supremacy in general, and promoting antisemitism in particular. A quick Google produces a pretty good summary: https://share.google/aimode/rL9lSxwPyJaxdFsap https://share.google/aimode/rL9lSxwPyJaxdFsap There's also his history of obsessing about race, especially "preserving" the white race: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk... Elon has frequently lied about George Soros paying activists, and espoused the "white replacement theory", which is that Jews are conspiring to "dilute" and replace the white population. He has also platformed literal white supremacists on X -- at the same time he has silenced his own critics. If Elon isn't a literal Nazi, he supports ideologies that are 100% compatible with Nazism.
    - rockemsockem 6mo ago
      I find it telling that both of those sources (one of which cites the other btw) conflate posts about "race science" and posts that are "anti-immigration conspiracies". These are not remotely the same thing. Elon is clearly against immigration policies enacted by a large number of western countries, a stance which does not make one a Nazi or white supremacist. Also in that Guardian article the evidence given for him being an anti-semite are that he unbanned people on Twitter and that he supports the AfD and told the country to get over its "past guilt" (a two-word quote btw is a sign of journalistic malfeasance, if you can't fit the context of a quote in your article then don't include the quote at all). So, that's really extremely underwhelming evidence and honestly I'd appreciate a more critical reading of the source material you've provided. I think you and MANY others should probably have a significantly higher bar for calling someone a white supremacist or a Nazi given all that such a statement implies.
imiric 6mo ago
This is a controversial opinion, but I do think that there are objectively right and wrong sides of political ideologies. At its core, there's nothing wrong with conservatism. Wanting to preserve traditional cultural and social values; the nuclear family with a father and mother figure; theology as the moral backbone—all of these are reasonable ideas. But somewhere along the way this got associated with xenophobia, racism, bigotry, intolerance, hatred, and all kinds of evil shit, which goes against even the teachings of their holy scriptures. How people can hold these conflicting viewpoints is beyond me. Either they're using this ideology as an excuse for their heinous thoughts and behavior, or they're intellectually incapable of introspection and critical thinking. Maybe both. I'm moderately left leaning, and the extreme left has also undoubtedly lost the plot, but at least that side espouses tolerance, humanism, and some ideas that I find appealing but don't consider essential to humanity, such as secularism, skepticism, liberalism, etc. There are objectionable ideas on the left as well, but these are often a reaction to the intolerance of the other side, and rarely a product of the ideology itself. I do think this is needed to a certain extent, as complete tolerance is a weakness that opportunistic people will exploit (paradox of tolerance). So to me it's clear that one side is on the right side of history, and the other one isn't. One is trying to move us towards a better future and well-being for everyone, while the other is sabotaging this to destroy and hoard riches for a few. I'm still unable to process that people like Trump, Putin, Orbán, et al, are able to not only be successful, but to accumulate unimaginable wealth and power. It's not only that I disagree with their politics. It's that I'm baffled by the fact that we put people like this in power, and that the majority are unable to see the harm they're doing to the world, only so that they can enrich themselves and their very close inner circle. These are signs that humanity is still held back by some deeply rooted social traits which I'm not sure we'll be able to overcome before it's too late. Part of me is also disturbed by the negative role technology is playing in all of this, yet we're all entranced by its appeal to do anything about it.
- LordDragonfang 6mo ago
  One of the five fundamental pillars of conservative thought, as phrased by wikipedia (which is itself merely paraphrasing Russel Kirk, a foundational of post-war American conservativatism), is: > A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize natural distinctions. Racism and bigotry are not errant additions to conservatism, they're a logical extension of one of its foundational pillars. (Though that is not to say that the left is not without its racism and bigotry as well, it's just less of a natural fit)
whatsupdog 6mo ago
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- whatsupdog 6mo ago
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  - stefanfisk 6mo ago
    There’s a reason for why you are comparing still shots to the actual video of Musk saluting the crowd nazi style.
    - Uhhrrr 6mo ago
      The very first clip is video of Cory Booker.
- anigbrowl 6mo ago
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dzhiurgis 6mo ago
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- dmschulman 6mo ago
  One of the biggest accounts on X hosts one of the most listened to podcasts on Spotify/Apple and has a huge following that's grown exponentially since 2023. He's an active Holocaust denier, proud antisemite, and dined with the president and members of his cabinet on more than one occasion. To say there's no growing movement towards Nazi and anti-Jewish ideologies is to be willfully ignorant of the world around you.
  - dzhiurgis 6mo ago
    Random christian troll doesn’t make entire platform a nazi bar.
  - carefree-bob 6mo ago
    Twitter has over a billion users. You can find big accounts saying all sorts of inflammatory things. What you are complaining about is that tweets which rile you up are not censored. But those days are basically over, so you may want to consider leaving twitter if you insist on a higher level of censorship than what twitter is giving you. Of course if you already left twitter, and are still complaining merely about the existence of a business that doesn't censor to your taste, then I would recommend looking for other past times. Try baseball.
  - DaSHacka 6mo ago
    I'm trying to figure out who you're talking about but no one makes sense. Fuentes? Definitely not on Apple. Rogan? Not a holocaust denier, has fairly progressive views outside of his Trump endorsement. Adin Ross? Does he even have a podcast? And would anyone care what he thinks?
  - nandomrumber 6mo ago
    Who are you talking about?
slantedview 6mo ago
> I find it deeply dismaying that people consider that "just politics" or that opposing it is "ideological" It depends: if you support far right viewpoints, like wanting to deport minorities, the MSM will cover it as just politics. If you support far left (for America) viewpoints, like, wanting free healthcare, the MSM will cover it as if you're a radical communist.
- nostrebored 6mo ago
  This is entirely framing. To most people “I want to deport minorities” would imply nothing about citizenship status. Someone with the opposite opinion would frame it as “open borders”, which is an extremist viewpoint globally and also not what people on the left in the US are advocating for. Media coverage in the US is partisan. This is not an insightful viewpoint or nearly as incendiary as you’re making it out to be.
deadeye 6mo ago
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- reppap 6mo ago
  I'd rather turn into reddit than turn into a nazi.
  - DaSHacka 6mo ago
    I'd rather turn into neither, but that's just me
- ball_of_lint 6mo ago
  Say you're Elon Musk, billionaire and really smart guy. And you're asked to give a speech. That speech will be viewed by millions. You probably have a speechwriter, and a PR consultant, and hey, why not a body language consultant. When you get on stage, you're going to present exactly the message you mean to. Anything less would be a waste of your time, right?
  - DaSHacka 6mo ago
    "Really smart" and "elon" are not two words I'd put together in the same sentence. Reminder this is the same man that paid someone else to play on his video game account for him so he could pretend to be better at video games.
    - ball_of_lint 6mo ago
      I don't actually believe this, but am picking an argument that I expect deadeye an Elon apologist to believe. If you don't think he's smart I don't need to convince you?
- vict7 6mo ago
  Key thing being pictures, not videos. Far easier to make the same false equivalence you are making that way. Sad to see folks continuing to twist themselves into knots to defend an indefensible gesture performed by an objectively terrible human being.
aaron695 6mo ago
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throwthro0954 6mo ago
>throwing those salutes It was an awkward gesture that he did once in the moment, you are making it sound like he is going around doing it all the time. He's a bit of an eccentric, I genuinely believe he wasn't intending on it coming off like that. > "white homeland" Where is this quote available?
- ngetchell 6mo ago
  He did it twice and knew exactly what he was doing. The crowd he was in front of ate it right up.
- culi 6mo ago
  > It was an awkward gesture that he did once in the moment He was quite self aware of what he did. He immediately followed it up by visiting a rally for the far right in Germany.
jrsj 6mo ago
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by davidw 6mo ago

highmastdon 6mo ago

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SimianSci 6mo ago
Your comment on vagueness misses its mark. > business leader throwing those salutes and backing it up with talk of a "white homeland" It is not every commenter's duty to cite their sources when you have the ability to easily infer the context and search the internet. These are very well documented actions that they refer to. Your attempts to drive sentiment through casting doubt are noticed.
alterom 6mo ago
>What do you mean _exactly_? Covering your statement is a shroud of vagueness doesn’t help form an opinion, only infuse more polarisation Oh come on. Everyone who's been paying attention enough to warrant having opinions on the subject knows what the reference is to. But if you just came out of a cryogenic freeze, they're talking about: 1. Elon Musk appearing to be giving a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration [1] 2. Elon Musk espousing and propagating white supremacist views nearly on a daily basis[2] 3. Elon Musk openly supporting borderline Neo-Nazi[3][4] German AfD party[5] 4. Elon Musk promulgating the myth of "white genocide"[6] I guess if you somehow missed all of that over the past few years, you wouldn't know what the parent comment is about. But in that case, you shouldn't be taking a part in this conversation, or opining about what would "infuse[sic] more polarisation". [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VfYjPzj1Xw [2] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk... [3] https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2024-07-31/frontline-investigates-the-rise-of-the-neo-nazi-afd-party-in-germany https://www.tpr.org/podcast/the-source/2024-07-31/frontline-... [4] https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dangerous-liaisons-the-true-proximity-of-germany-s-afd-to-neo-nazis-a-e69c51d3-4b3c-49d2-8d54-d7b0a19c3f9a https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/dangerous-liais... [5] https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/europe/elon-musk-germany-afd-protests-intl-latam https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/25/europe/elon-musk-germany-afd-... [6] https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0lhfn68 https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/p0lhfn68 [3]
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holmesworcester 6mo ago

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ryandrake 6mo ago
Anyone who doesn't think what Musk did was a Nazi salute, I encourage you to watch the video over and over, enough times so that you can memorize and replicate it, then go into work and do it in front of your manager, and see what happens. Of course, as expected, the Elon Musk Defense League showed up right on time. Does he give out $100 for every post defending his honor online?
- mindslight 6mo ago
  "Oh, I must have missed seeing you at the corporate retreat! Put yourself on my calendar so we can talk about your promotion."
- ceejayoz 6mo ago
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  - holmesworcester 6mo ago
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- fooey 6mo ago
  he literally paraphrased the 14 words after doing it "It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured." it's an absolute joke anyone disputes what he did
- holmesworcester 6mo ago
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ryandrake 6mo ago

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cozyman 6mo ago

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quantified 6mo ago

Well, all of these are politics and ideology. It's OK to have an ideological bent of some sort or other. You can indeed be highly intolerant of those who are intolerant in certain ways. You can hate certain kinds of hate. And you can call out greedy callous bastards wherever you see them. It's basically being discerning.

r-w 6mo ago
GP is saying neo-Nazis are "not just politics, but also something worse". You're not really disagreeing with them, maybe just missing their point about some ideologies being worthy of planned exclusion from a civilized society. Aka the paradox of tolerance. That's what makes some political stances "not just politics".
- Terr_ 6mo ago
  I find a lot of the paradox-ness goes away when one look at such arrangements a peace-treaties. (Or at least, it gets subsumed into a broader set of respective and respectable dilemmas.) For example, just because Country A "wants peace" doesn't mean they do nothing as Country B gets taken over by a revanchists regime declaring the treaty evil and massing troops the borders. It would be ridiculous (and depressingly realistic) for some critics to say: "They don't really want peace, or else they would be a nation of pacifists who would let themselves get annexed right now without bloodshed.)
  - sigmarule 6mo ago
    I view this paradox as just an effect of poor framing. We should not look at it as “I am against intolerance/hatred/XYZ”, but “I want to minimize intolerance/hatred/XYZ.” The first focuses on local, case-by-case contexts, the latter in aggregate. Some XYZs, in some contexts, have properties that make them effective local tools to mitigate themselves in an aggregate context, which is probably a better candidate paradox here.

bluebarbet 6mo ago

But since when did using a business's product come to require sharing (or not sharing) political views with the business's owner? Seems to me that this is what has changed. PS. It's amazing to me, and worrying, the anger and vituperation this position is provoking. It was once almost consensus. To take the obvious parallel, buying a newspaper did not imply agreement with the reactionary press baron who owned it.

etchalon 6mo ago
No one would say they used "David Duke's Whites Only Car Wash" but "didn't support the owner's politics."
- habinero 6mo ago
  It's always amazing how much that kind of person will pretend not to get it, and whine about being a pariah.
- weirdmantis69 6mo ago
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iwontberude 6mo ago
The conflict seems as old as ever. Labor vs union-busting robber baron.
woodruffw 6mo ago
Most people hold a set of political views, while also admitting a spectrum of competing views into their personal, financial, etc. lives. For the average person, doing business with a neo-Nazi (or someone who is "merely" neo-Nazi adjacent) exceeds that spectrum. This is eminently reasonable, and has not changed significantly in a long time.
pavlov 6mo ago
In the case of X, the business owner is aggressively pushing his political views on users by heavy-handed methods like prioritizing his own posts in algorithmic feeds and overriding the context of his AI bot to parrot his pet ideas. If you went to a restaurant and it had Confederate flags and pro-slavery memorabilia on the walls, would you think: “Well, that’s just their political view, I don’t have to share it to eat here?”

deleted 6mo ago

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pirate787 6mo ago

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mullingitover 6mo ago
It's grossly dishonest to conflate a complexion with an ethnicity. 'White' is a complexion, not a culture. For most of the past five centuries, the people you're lumping into this thing called 'white' would've considered it fighting words to do so.
- pirate787 6mo ago
  Part of the replacement is declaring white Americans don't have a culture. Would you say the same about black Americans?
  - mullingitover 6mo ago
    There's no 'white' culture, there is modern North American culture and it's not something that belongs to a particular complexion. It's norms and traditions. These aren't remotely under threat of extinction from 'race mixing.' The things that are under threat are the contemporary cultural values of openness and acceptance of other cultures/relgions/traits. These are truly valuable, positive aspects that stand out in contemporary American and European societies, and these are the things that are legitimately under threat, ironically, by those who attempt to normalize racism and xenophobia.
    - matheusmoreira 6mo ago
      > There's no 'white' culture, there is modern North American culture and it's not something that belongs to a particular complexion. This doesn't seem right to me. WASP culture absolutely does exist. Anyone can see it in full display by watching films like Dead Poets Society or Home Alone.
  - Kallikrates 6mo ago
    no

Amezarak 6mo ago

Politics is all-encompassing. You don’t get to declare your beliefs privileged and above contestation. We always have to fight these battles.

stronglikedan 6mo ago

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supliminal 6mo ago

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dfadsadsf 6mo ago

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bigyabai 6mo ago
> Not sure their ideology was such a win. South Africa's transition away from being a nuclear apartheid state was an objective win for everyone, everywhere.
huxley 6mo ago
I personally am not interested in the bigots of previous generations making those decisions any more than I want contemporary ones to.

weirdmantis69 6mo ago

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bzb 6mo ago
My friend, please reflect on who in this exchange might be easily manipulated by clips on the internet.
- weirdmantis69 6mo ago
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  - bzb 6mo ago
    Peace be with you.
MaxL93 6mo ago
They are very demonstrably not making the same movement and I strongly feel like it would take someone trying to reason backwards from a predetermined conclusion to see this
- weirdmantis69 6mo ago
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  - Supermancho 6mo ago
    (better comparison) https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2026/01/02/hypocrisy-on-full-display-media-who-tore-into-elon-musk-ignore-when-mamdani-does-exact-same-thing-n2197711 https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2026/01/02/hypocrisy-on-full-di... They are not "exactly" the same. There's a symbolic reason you keep your hand flat, rigid, and parallel to the arm, in a salute.
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MetaWhirledPeas 6mo ago

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davidw 6mo ago
Here it is: https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338 https://xcancel.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338 That's just disgusting stuff. Gutter white nationalism.
- MetaWhirledPeas 6mo ago
  I can't believe you're making me defend Tucker Carlson of all people, but he's pointing out that races should be treated equally. (Apparently in response to someone's statement he considered racist? I don't know or care enough to find out.) But at least I see where you're making the connection to the phrase "white homeland" even though neither of the people involved are calling for that. Thanks for the link.
  - deleted 6mo ago
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- onetimeusename 6mo ago
  So in order to stop the next Nazis, promote racism against white people and then if they complain that is proof they were planning to become Nazis.
ActivePattern 6mo ago
He's most definitely talking about a white homeland [1][2] [1] https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1962406618886492245 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1962406618886492245 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remigration
qyph 6mo ago
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2030202550259962338

slibhb 6mo ago

> I find it deeply dismaying that people consider that "just politics" or that opposing it is "ideological". We can argue all day about the proper rate of corporate taxation or debate the best way to implement environmental regulations, and I will not consider you a bad person if you disagree with me. But the kind of crap coming out of that guy? That's beyond politics. Elon's behavior is truly disgraceful, but spouting dumb shit is not "beyond politics".

threatofrain 6mo ago
You wish to lead with "dumb shit" in framing why people have a problem with Elon Musk? Why not lead with the Nazi salute at the presidential podium? That would more quickly get to the point.
- slibhb 6mo ago
  Nazi salutes are protected speech and not "beyond politics". Yes it's disgraceful, and it's reasonable to leave his platform. But it qualifies as "dumb shit".
  - kenjackson 6mo ago
    Protected speech can be beyond politics. Politics doesn't subsume all protected speech.
  - cortesoft 6mo ago
    I think the point is to distinguish ‘political opinions that I am comfortable disagreeing with people about, and can still be friendly with people who strongly disagree with me’ and ‘morally unacceptable opinions that I will neither listen to nor associate with anyone who hold them’. There are many political opinions that I strongly believe in that I am comfortable disagreeing with people on. I believe everyone has a right to health care, and that society should guarantee basic necessities for everyone. I even feel that belief is a morality based belief. However, I can accept people disagreeing with me, and can accept that there are some strong arguments against my belief, and that good people can disagree with my position. On the other hand, if someone believes that certain races should not have the same rights, or that women should be given less agency than men, I will not entertain that argument or accept that it is just a political dispute. That is a fundamental moral issue, and is beyond JUST politics.

lasky 6mo ago

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dyauspitr 6mo ago
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- gortok 6mo ago
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  - selectively 6mo ago
    Truth. Unpopular here, but that is the truth.
  - tosapple 6mo ago
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- rustyhancock 6mo ago
  Ultimately this approach is what's lead us to a progressively rising right wing. If you refuse to engage in democratic systems you lose by default. I'm still not sure why Harris didn't fight to appear on JRE. Hilary Clinton made the same mistake. And the same mistakes are being made in Europe. If we turn our back on the voting population you have to accept that someone else who reaches out to them gets their vote.
  - ImPostingOnHN 6mo ago
    "losing by default" on elmu's "X" is actually totally okay > If we turn our back on the voting population I don't see how refusing to patronize 1 nazi is "turning your back on the voting population". Especially when the voting population doesn't like nazis. It's more like embracing the voting population.
    - temp8830 6mo ago

EngineerUSA 6mo ago

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saila 6mo ago
I'd suggest you dig a little deeper into American history. For example, "America First" isn't a new slogan. It's been used in its current sense for at least a century. Murdoch via Roger Ailes poured oil on the fire, but that was only possible because the sentiment already existed here and always has.
- MonkeyIsNull 6mo ago
  Unfortunately this is true. Around a year, or two years ago the WaPo (back before it was a total shill, yes it was still bad but... you know) had an article about how all the rhetoric from the far right in the US was almost, word for word, what was said a little more than 100 years ago. It was downright scary. Some part of the US has _always_ been that way. Maybe someone can find the article.
- shimman 6mo ago
  Seriously, our constitution was literally written to embolden a minority of slave owners and make sure that the people could not hold them accountable due to the structure of the government. It was always a colonial white nationalist state and it took a civil war + second founding before people weren't treated as property. It then took nearly another 100 years before all peoples in this country could vote. We're literally the first generation of Americans who grew up with nearly total emancipation + universal suffrage and we still have people fighting to bring back polling taxes and removing citizenship.
- wwweston 6mo ago
  You’re right that this has always existed and at times even driven governance and society in the US. There’s also been times when other values more like what the GP implies have driven governance and social direction in the US. There was a side with values like that in the civil war. There was government and there were movements with those values for much of the 20th century especially following periods of national trial when it was clear we needed governing values that truly drove the common welfare. A lot of us grew up and are still living with the fruits of that. That’s the America we’ve known. We’ve also always known that there are many Americans who never bought in, who had a vision more like the other side of the civil war, or want welfare that’s a bit more unevenly distributed, perhaps not even distributed in some directions at all. It can still be a bit of a shock to find out that illiberal portion growing with a grip on a growing number of levers of power. Can the America with a vision of truly common welfare reassert itself? Maybe. Maybe not.

LastTrain 6mo ago

I live in Idaho I know loads of people and family who I would have bet would reject what is happening in today’s Republican Party but man was I wrong. With very few exceptions they gobble it up.

romanhn 6mo ago
North Idaho specifically has been a hub for white power movements for a while: https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/27/north-idaho-and-spokane-have-been-a-historical-hot/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2024/mar/27/north-idaho-an...
- LastTrain 6mo ago
  Yes. In the 90's in particular. I'm old and I was in Idaho at the time. What I remember, and I try in vain to remind my conservative family and friends, is that both parties wanted that shit rode out of town on a rail back then. It is now the dominant world view in Idaho conservative politics. I will point to the "accomplishments" of our last legislative session as evidence.
  - davidw 6mo ago
    This is exactly what I'm talking about. My grandparents were no paragon of 'racial justice' but did they ever hate those Nazis. Back then, the Nazis were excluded from 'polite society' and had no hope of gaining power through normal democratic channels. That has changed.
    - bigbadfeline 6mo ago
      > That has changed. That was changed.
    - LastTrain 6mo ago
      Sure, so did my dad, and Idaho politicians who are still in office to this day. Guess what? They don’t hate Nazis any more. Well, they don’t hate Republicans acting like Nazis. If a Democrat were to throw a Nazi salute they’d be upset about that.

dyauspitr 6mo ago

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dogemaster2027 6mo ago
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pendenthistory 6mo ago
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- teachrdan 6mo ago
  I'm going to assume good faith on your part, and that you're ignorant of specific things Elon has said and done in support of white supremacy in general, and promoting antisemitism in particular. A quick Google produces a pretty good summary: https://share.google/aimode/rL9lSxwPyJaxdFsap https://share.google/aimode/rL9lSxwPyJaxdFsap There's also his history of obsessing about race, especially "preserving" the white race: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk-posts-january-white-supremacists https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/12/elon-musk... Elon has frequently lied about George Soros paying activists, and espoused the "white replacement theory", which is that Jews are conspiring to "dilute" and replace the white population. He has also platformed literal white supremacists on X -- at the same time he has silenced his own critics. If Elon isn't a literal Nazi, he supports ideologies that are 100% compatible with Nazism.
  - rockemsockem 6mo ago
    I find it telling that both of those sources (one of which cites the other btw) conflate posts about "race science" and posts that are "anti-immigration conspiracies". These are not remotely the same thing. Elon is clearly against immigration policies enacted by a large number of western countries, a stance which does not make one a Nazi or white supremacist. Also in that Guardian article the evidence given for him being an anti-semite are that he unbanned people on Twitter and that he supports the AfD and told the country to get over its "past guilt" (a two-word quote btw is a sign of journalistic malfeasance, if you can't fit the context of a quote in your article then don't include the quote at all). So, that's really extremely underwhelming evidence and honestly I'd appreciate a more critical reading of the source material you've provided. I think you and MANY others should probably have a significantly higher bar for calling someone a white supremacist or a Nazi given all that such a statement implies.

imiric 6mo ago

This is a controversial opinion, but I do think that there are objectively right and wrong sides of political ideologies. At its core, there's nothing wrong with conservatism. Wanting to preserve traditional cultural and social values; the nuclear family with a father and mother figure; theology as the moral backbone—all of these are reasonable ideas. But somewhere along the way this got associated with xenophobia, racism, bigotry, intolerance, hatred, and all kinds of evil shit, which goes against even the teachings of their holy scriptures. How people can hold these conflicting viewpoints is beyond me. Either they're using this ideology as an excuse for their heinous thoughts and behavior, or they're intellectually incapable of introspection and critical thinking. Maybe both. I'm moderately left leaning, and the extreme left has also undoubtedly lost the plot, but at least that side espouses tolerance, humanism, and some ideas that I find appealing but don't consider essential to humanity, such as secularism, skepticism, liberalism, etc. There are objectionable ideas on the left as well, but these are often a reaction to the intolerance of the other side, and rarely a product of the ideology itself. I do think this is needed to a certain extent, as complete tolerance is a weakness that opportunistic people will exploit (paradox of tolerance). So to me it's clear that one side is on the right side of history, and the other one isn't. One is trying to move us towards a better future and well-being for everyone, while the other is sabotaging this to destroy and hoard riches for a few. I'm still unable to process that people like Trump, Putin, Orbán, et al, are able to not only be successful, but to accumulate unimaginable wealth and power. It's not only that I disagree with their politics. It's that I'm baffled by the fact that we put people like this in power, and that the majority are unable to see the harm they're doing to the world, only so that they can enrich themselves and their very close inner circle. These are signs that humanity is still held back by some deeply rooted social traits which I'm not sure we'll be able to overcome before it's too late. Part of me is also disturbed by the negative role technology is playing in all of this, yet we're all entranced by its appeal to do anything about it.

LordDragonfang 6mo ago
One of the five fundamental pillars of conservative thought, as phrased by wikipedia (which is itself merely paraphrasing Russel Kirk, a foundational of post-war American conservativatism), is: > A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize natural distinctions. Racism and bigotry are not errant additions to conservatism, they're a logical extension of one of its foundational pillars. (Though that is not to say that the left is not without its racism and bigotry as well, it's just less of a natural fit)

whatsupdog 6mo ago

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whatsupdog 6mo ago
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- stefanfisk 6mo ago
  There’s a reason for why you are comparing still shots to the actual video of Musk saluting the crowd nazi style.
  - Uhhrrr 6mo ago
    The very first clip is video of Cory Booker.
anigbrowl 6mo ago
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dzhiurgis 6mo ago

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dmschulman 6mo ago
One of the biggest accounts on X hosts one of the most listened to podcasts on Spotify/Apple and has a huge following that's grown exponentially since 2023. He's an active Holocaust denier, proud antisemite, and dined with the president and members of his cabinet on more than one occasion. To say there's no growing movement towards Nazi and anti-Jewish ideologies is to be willfully ignorant of the world around you.
- dzhiurgis 6mo ago
  Random christian troll doesn’t make entire platform a nazi bar.
- carefree-bob 6mo ago
  Twitter has over a billion users. You can find big accounts saying all sorts of inflammatory things. What you are complaining about is that tweets which rile you up are not censored. But those days are basically over, so you may want to consider leaving twitter if you insist on a higher level of censorship than what twitter is giving you. Of course if you already left twitter, and are still complaining merely about the existence of a business that doesn't censor to your taste, then I would recommend looking for other past times. Try baseball.
- DaSHacka 6mo ago
  I'm trying to figure out who you're talking about but no one makes sense. Fuentes? Definitely not on Apple. Rogan? Not a holocaust denier, has fairly progressive views outside of his Trump endorsement. Adin Ross? Does he even have a podcast? And would anyone care what he thinks?
- nandomrumber 6mo ago
  Who are you talking about?

slantedview 6mo ago

> I find it deeply dismaying that people consider that "just politics" or that opposing it is "ideological" It depends: if you support far right viewpoints, like wanting to deport minorities, the MSM will cover it as just politics. If you support far left (for America) viewpoints, like, wanting free healthcare, the MSM will cover it as if you're a radical communist.

nostrebored 6mo ago
This is entirely framing. To most people “I want to deport minorities” would imply nothing about citizenship status. Someone with the opposite opinion would frame it as “open borders”, which is an extremist viewpoint globally and also not what people on the left in the US are advocating for. Media coverage in the US is partisan. This is not an insightful viewpoint or nearly as incendiary as you’re making it out to be.

deadeye 6mo ago

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reppap 6mo ago
I'd rather turn into reddit than turn into a nazi.
- DaSHacka 6mo ago
  I'd rather turn into neither, but that's just me
ball_of_lint 6mo ago
Say you're Elon Musk, billionaire and really smart guy. And you're asked to give a speech. That speech will be viewed by millions. You probably have a speechwriter, and a PR consultant, and hey, why not a body language consultant. When you get on stage, you're going to present exactly the message you mean to. Anything less would be a waste of your time, right?
- DaSHacka 6mo ago
  "Really smart" and "elon" are not two words I'd put together in the same sentence. Reminder this is the same man that paid someone else to play on his video game account for him so he could pretend to be better at video games.
  - ball_of_lint 6mo ago
    I don't actually believe this, but am picking an argument that I expect deadeye an Elon apologist to believe. If you don't think he's smart I don't need to convince you?
vict7 6mo ago
Key thing being pictures, not videos. Far easier to make the same false equivalence you are making that way. Sad to see folks continuing to twist themselves into knots to defend an indefensible gesture performed by an objectively terrible human being.

aaron695 6mo ago

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throwthro0954 6mo ago

>throwing those salutes It was an awkward gesture that he did once in the moment, you are making it sound like he is going around doing it all the time. He's a bit of an eccentric, I genuinely believe he wasn't intending on it coming off like that. > "white homeland" Where is this quote available?

ngetchell 6mo ago
He did it twice and knew exactly what he was doing. The crowd he was in front of ate it right up.
culi 6mo ago
> It was an awkward gesture that he did once in the moment He was quite self aware of what he did. He immediately followed it up by visiting a rally for the far right in Germany.

jrsj 6mo ago

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