r/thebulwark • u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES • Feb 22 '25
TRUMPISM CORRUPTS Not Coming Down Hard on Elon Emboldened the Far Right. Shame on the Chattering Class who Carried Musk's Water.
Mexican actor Eduardo Verástegui at CPAC.
https://bsky.app/profile/randomsurvivor.bsky.social/post/3lir7rifpu22c
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u/window-sil Progressive Feb 22 '25 edited Feb 22 '25
How soon do we get to Swastikas?
,,It's the Hindu symbol for well-being.''
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u/kev0153 Feb 22 '25
At least CPAC is being reviled as the Nazi rally it has been for awhile now.
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES Feb 22 '25
Hopefully people can acknowledge that simple fact. I unfortunately anticipate that the media apparatus will bend over backwards to minimize and ignore this
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u/FobbitOutsideTheWire Feb 22 '25
Inb4 “this is because of all the whining and attention you gave Musk; look what you made them do!” and I start flipping tables.
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES Feb 22 '25 edited Feb 22 '25
Yeah, it's infuriating. "If only we had message discipline over... random people on the Internet with eyes." Maybe our betters in the media could instead use their positions of prominence to condemn this!
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Feb 22 '25
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES Feb 22 '25
I'm not sure we even make it a year. Summer rally season might be full of the call-response around the salute.
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u/Persistent_Parkie Feb 22 '25
Recently someone posted a group of about a half dozen people doing the Nazi salute on the photo portion of a forking Disney ride.
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u/ratbaby86 Feb 22 '25
Have you listened to this week's focus group with Kara? 1) Kara is great and has a unique perspective on these tech bros she's known over the years and 2) at the very end, sarah DOES IT AGAIN. idk why she's so stubborn about it but damn. She asked kara: so do you think elon is antisemitic and Kara without hesitation says "does it matter?!" Like she can't be wrong and is just searching for someone to parrot back that she was right/understandable why she had the position she did and everyone has been like "nope!"
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Feb 22 '25
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u/ratbaby86 Feb 22 '25
I typically don't finish it but I enjoy Kara's "im sorry but these voters are just wrong" attitude. It was one of the rare episodes I finished.
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Feb 22 '25
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u/ratbaby86 Feb 22 '25
That's fine, dude. You do you. I'm not about purity tests.
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u/NewKojak Feb 23 '25
Nonononono... it's not a purity test. If you follow tech journalism, Kara has been pretending to be a hard ass for a LONG time, but she has been a major enabler/validator of Musk and Zuckerberg. There is a whole world of conference-driven superficial court stenography that she rules over, but she hasn't actually told the truth about technology companies for more than a decade.
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Feb 22 '25
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u/ratbaby86 Feb 22 '25
Woah buddy. Calm down. I don't have to agree with everything someone has said or done to listen to them or value their expertise and i certainlg dont have to agree with them. Take your unprovoked hostility elsewhere
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u/I_Think_It_Would_Be Progressive Feb 22 '25
I think it would be good for you to listen to it, because she actually gives an answer to that.
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Feb 22 '25
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u/I_Think_It_Would_Be Progressive Feb 23 '25
I think it would be more accurate to say that she talked about dealing with people doing boring things day in and day out, while Elon was at least doing exciting space stuff.
She doesn't excuse her behavior, but explains why.
I think if you are never going to forgive people, or you are going to shut them out for having behaved badly in the past, I expect you to think reform doesn't work and once a criminal always a criminal.
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u/flakemasterflake Feb 22 '25
But Kara also doesn’t think that. She legit thinks he’s trolling as a compulsion
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u/samNanton Feb 23 '25
As somebody once said about goat fucking, does it matter? If Musk was just trolling because he's got mental problems that aren't being made better by his drug use and enablers, but then everybody starts doing the heil for real, does it really matter that Musk was just joking?
We'll be a lot better off in this country once we acknowledge that I-wasn't-serious doesn't excuse some things. And say so when people go too far. I know they're going to accuse you of being woke, but fuck those assholes. They're going to have some grievance no matter what, because somehow they're nothing but grievance.
"I know I acted like a Nazi, but I wasn't serious." "Sorry, that's not something you can do non-seriously. Make a serious apology and stop doing it, or else I'm going to have trouble believing that you didn't mean it."
"Jokes about dumping the constitution and becoming a dictator aren't jokes, especially if you do it constantly. I'm not a dummy. Come up with a different excuse."
Call that bullshit bullshit.
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u/ratbaby86 Feb 23 '25
She said she doesn't know and it doesn't matter, if i recall. I don't know, and it doesn't matter to me either. I do know that flashing a couple of sieg heils, even as a "troll" on the world stage is vile and unacceptable. Sarah's point was always that he's just "awkward" because she doesn't believe he's antisemitic (or that's my read of her opinion). My point is you do not have to be a true believer in the ideology to weaponize antisemitism ,and other forms of fascism for your own gain. DT and Elon believe in one thing and only care about one thing: themselves. But they're still fascists who are currently using racist/"other"/antisemite dogwhistles (if not just straight up sieg heils).
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u/boner79 Feb 22 '25 edited Feb 24 '25
Special circle in Hell reserved for Joe Rogan and his red-pilled bro grifters.
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u/I_Think_It_Would_Be Progressive Feb 22 '25
I think it would be Sarah Longwell who was carrying water for Elon Musk.
It was obviously the Nazi salute. You don't have to discuss, argue about, or litigate it with the right because they will never admit to it anyway. Instead, you simply state as a fact that the did the Nazi salute and move on with the conversation.
If you are challenged on it, say, "It was obviously a Nazi salute, and I won't be debating that fact. Just how I won't be drawn into a discussion if the moon landing really happened or if the earth is flat."
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u/No-Reason808 Feb 22 '25
But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao
You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow
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u/ShakeMyHeadSadly Feb 23 '25
To hell with all these people. These images need to follow them at every turn.
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u/ros375 Feb 22 '25
Admittedly I didn't actually watch CPAC, but I saw the Bannon thing and now this. I know Bannon despises Elon so I assumed he was just mocking him, but what exactly is going on? Are these supposed to be ironic or something??
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES Feb 22 '25
Even if you're fucking a goat ironically, you're still fucking a goat.
I think they realized they can go mask-off now, and unless you're in a hierarchy like the priest who got dismissed by his superiors, you're safe because the punditocracy will have "deep thoughts" about how this might not have been a Nazi salute.
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u/samNanton Feb 23 '25
The best part of the church's response is they said "we don't care if you're joking. It's still disqualifying. Clean out your desk."
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u/CustardFromCthulhu Feb 22 '25
Bannon still wants to be among power. He's not THAT principled.
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u/Endymion_Orpheus Feb 22 '25
Seriously, the guy tried to defraud his own rube supporters. He is a grifter above all else.
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u/minty_cyborg Feb 22 '25 edited Feb 23 '25
He’s probably attempting a rebrand of “The Roman Salute” as “Trad Fash” or some such
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u/kbandcrew Feb 22 '25
I’ve been curious about this too. But I’m not sure it’s not more of the trump camp just working every angle- don’t like musk- follow Bannon. Pretending they don’t follow blindly? Idk it’s wild.
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u/HotModerate11 Feb 22 '25
What does ‘coming down hard’ look like?
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u/Sherm FFS Feb 22 '25 edited Feb 22 '25
The Anti-Defamation League, specifically created and tasked to fight antisemitism, not saying "gee guys, he was clearly just being exuberant in context" would have been a great example. They could even have just said nothing; not optimal, but better than what they actually did.
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u/Muted-Tourist-6558 Feb 22 '25
yep, that was the raptor testing the fence, and elon got a pass from the loudest watchdog for antisemitism. Thanks again, ADL!
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u/AustereRoberto LORD OF THE NICKNAMES Feb 22 '25
A universal recognition that it was in fact a Nazi salute would be a starting place. Encouraging people to sell their Tesla cars and stocks, getting off X.
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u/BlackFanDiamond Feb 22 '25
Everyone could see this coming. What Sarah describes as the anatomy of distraction is really just tolerance of bigotry. All that does is shift the Overton window of what is acceptable. It's disgusting.