Help protect children from gaming harms.

Take our survey

Please or to access all these features

Politics

Musk buoys up Nazis

33 replies

MsAmerica · 04/02/2025 23:44

Musk Says Germany Has ‘Too Much of a Focus on Past Guilt’
His comments to the hard-right Alternative for Germany party escalated efforts by the billionaire to influence the country’s election for chancellor next month.
“It’s good to be proud of German culture, German values, and not to lose that in some sort of multiculturalism that dilutes everything,” Elon Musk told a gathering of the hard-right Alternative for Germany party on Saturday.
By Jim Tankersley and Christopher F. Schuetze

Mr. Musk himself recently stirred controversy in Germany and elsewhere by giving what was widely interpreted as a Nazi salute to a rally of supporters after Mr. Trump’s inauguration.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/27/world/europe/musk-germany-afd-auschwitz.html

Elon Musk faces criticism for encouraging Germans to move beyond 'past guilt'
By Rachel Treisman

Musk, the world's richest man, has waded into politics in other European countries, throwing his support behind far-right leaders such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and trolling Britain's center-left government.

www.npr.org/2025/01/27/nx-s1-5276084/elon-musk-german-far-right-afd-holocaust

OP posts:
1dayatatime · 14/02/2025 13:32

@Snorlaxo

"If not, why not ?"

Because it was a long time ago and we cannot blame or place guilt upon today's generation for the sins of their great great great grandfathers.

Especially when other countries refuse to even acknowledge the sins of their previous generations let alone feel any guilt for them. How many people in Turkey feel guilt for the Armenian genocide today? How many Russians feel guilt for the mass rapes and ethnic cleansing of Germans in WW2? How many Algerians feel guilt for the Barbary slave trade that continued after the Transatlantic slave trade was abolished?

In short because it's time to move on.

Snorlaxo · 14/02/2025 13:15

It’s a sentiment that I hear from Reform types in the UK too with regards to slavery and empire. Do Americans carry guilt over Hiroshima, the Cold War eg Vietnam and meddling in other countries’ politics eg the Middle East? If not, why not ?

1dayatatime · 14/02/2025 13:04

But let's look at Musk's actual words:

Germany Has ‘Too Much of a Focus on Past Guilt"

So I guess the question is whether 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation Germane should still be feeling guilt over the actions of Germany in WW2 some 75 to 80 years ago or not.

If so then they would be unique in this respect with Japan, Russia, other allies and various partisan groups across Europe not accepting any guilt or regret for the war crimes committed by their nationals.

Lurkingandlearning · 14/02/2025 02:37

I’m wondering what other awful shit Musk is drawing attention away from. God help America.

MsAmerica · 14/02/2025 01:22

MsAmerica · 10/02/2025 22:15

I think they're both using each other - in the most venal, contemptible way.

Musk recently said, ‘I love Donald Trump as mush as a straight man can love another man.’

Eek! Excuse the typo. I hope everyone realized I meant:
‘I love Donald Trump as much as a straight man can love another man.’
Nothing "mushy."
Still, there's some clever joke in their somewhere, a pun with Musk-much-mush.

OP posts:
MsAmerica · 10/02/2025 22:15

I think they're both using each other - in the most venal, contemptible way.

Musk recently said, ‘I love Donald Trump as mush as a straight man can love another man.’

OP posts:
Youngheartsalittletogetherness · 05/02/2025 04:30

The influence and power musk has with or over Trump is frightening.

MrsTerryPratchett · 05/02/2025 04:27

Terrifying.

And Trump is his puppet. He can't be President of the US, because he was born in SA, so he's doing the next best thing.