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Nazi salute or not, Elon Musk was gesturing to a new spectacle of fascism

JL;DR SUMMARY Elon Musk's hand gesture during the 2025 presidential inauguration has sparked intense debate and speculation regarding its meaning, reminiscent of historic fascist salutes. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Elon MuskDonald TrumpSocial MediaFascismCapitalismWalter BenjaminMedia SpectacleHand GesturePolitical Aesthetics2025 Inauguration

Places mentioned

Washington, Washington DC, United States
"I am referring, of course, to the hand gesture made by Elon Musk at yesterdays presidential inauguration."
Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
"Had Musk confused the rotunda in the Capitol for the stadium at Nuremberg?"
Israel
"Was his gesture, as the Israeli paper Haaretz headlined, a fascist salute?"
Houston, Texas, United States
"A professor at the University of Houston, Robert Zaretsky is also a culture columnist at the Forward."
Paris, Île-de-France, France
"Benjamin saw the writing on the wall in his native country in 1933 brightly lit by the flames of the Reichstag fire and, condemning himself to exile, settled in Paris."

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This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 42247
Cairo Source ID 35
Retrieved 2025-01-22 05:30:24 UTC
Curated 2025-01-22 08:30:33 UTC