Summary

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez criticized Elon Musk after he made a gesture during Trump’s inauguration resembling a Nazi salute.

Musk and his allies dismissed the comparison, calling such accusations exaggerated.

Ocasio-Cortez, however, called the gesture unacceptable, emphasizing America’s history of opposing Nazis and the Confederacy.

She also condemned the Anti-Defamation League for defending Musk, accusing it of losing credibility.

Her comments sparked broader debate on symbols, gestures, and their implications amid Trump’s return to office.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    1 hour ago

    AOC, you personally might hate Nazis, but your country voted them into the White House, the congress, and the Senate. I wish you the best to fight the scum, like real Americans did 80 years ago.

  • Queen HawlSera@lemm.ee
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    1 hour ago

    Most based AOC, I wonder if the hate-thirsting over her will begin again now that she’s becoming such a needed voice in these trying times.

    Only asking because the memes about Ben Shapiro wnating her feet pics were funny as hell.

    But seriously, can it actually not? I low-key hated all the “Let’s just tell dumb blonde jokes with AOC instead of the dumb blonde.” memes, cause it’s like… when we call Trump dumb, we can point to shit he actually did (like turn every American into a woman because he’s too transphobic to know how to read), we aren’t just saying it to say it.

  • masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    3 hours ago

    In This Country, We Hate Nazis

    Lol! No they don’t.

    The US has always loved fascism. It’s the only one of two political ideologies it endorses.

  • StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    National identity is imaginary, powerful and useful. What she’s choosing to claim with hers is badass. It’s brash, in-your-face, heroic. Anti-apathy. And our world needs tonnes more of it.

    As an activist irl, and someone targeted daily by nazis for years, AOC has no illusions about the current state of fash in the USofA, nor the history and current state of slavery and genocide in the world. Nazis (and other misogynists) will tell you she’s ignorant and deluded, but you know she’s not. She’s manifesting, and the irony is lovely.

    If you want to live in the country she does - against all the opposition activists for the common good constantly face - claim it as she claims it. Go find your allies irl and stop letting powerful men tell you there’s no point trying anything. Your enemy says you’re not a real person, but a thing God put on earth for them to use or destroy.

    Tough love: Hope is hard work. Apathy is an easy trap that flatters your intelligence while it kills your spirit. Trust yourself and make a choice: who is your enemy and how are you going to treat them?

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      I heard an interview with the sci-fi author Kim Stanley Robinson, and he said something that I love: “pessimism is almost a dereliction of duty.”

      If we want the world to be a better place, we have to make it a better place.

      • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world
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        2 minutes ago

        Lewis or Chesterton had something similar, that optimism and pessimism were both dishonest, but patriotism was necessary to existence. Probably Lewis

    • Randelung@lemmy.world
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      51 minutes ago

      Fuck, dude. Maybe I have become too cynical. I’ve become a little dejected these last few days/weeks/months, but that was actually inspiring.

      I should follow your username’s advice more lol.

  • daltotron@lemmy.ml
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    3 hours ago

    I’d kind of be willing to wager that we actually hated nazis mostly because they were foreign, more than anything else. I think all that ww2 valorizing history schlock about me and the good old boys from ken-tucky and all over going out and killing all the nazis has totally cooked america’s understanding of that war. I dunno, towards the end we did nuke a country, twice, in a totally superfluous and cruel act, and we also concentrated the domestic immigrant population that we were bombing during that war into camps. Everyone brushes over that part, though, and america is truly faultless. These aren’t our true characters, being revealed, no, this is just some errant deviation from a much more civilized and reasonable norm! Surely, that must be the case.

    • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 hours ago

      I was about to comment this. The American National Socialist group had massive rallies, if we never got involved with WW2, we’d probably be massive friends with Hitler and use his policies as a springboard.

      Hitler was influenced by America’s mistreatment of natives and black people for his solutions to the “Jewish question”. We would have probably agreed if he was born in Mississippi and not Austria.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    We used to kill Nazis.

    Now we cheer them, shrug them off, or make excuses for them.

    This nation is pathetic.

    I wonder how many conservative’s ancestors fought the Nazis and now they’re voting for Nazis.

    Hey 2A enthusiasts. This is the moment you’ve been saying you need your guns for your entire pathetic lives. Where you at?

    • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      As an LGBTQ+ person who supports the NRA and believes we need substantially more guns in America and to repeal all gun regulation, I really hope all LGBTQ+ and allies not only are armed, but realize the benefit of owning a variety of firearms.

      Since conservatives are trying to say some or all LGBTQ+ people are mentally ill, and mental illness is often used to justify disarming people, it’s really important for LGBTQ+ people to be aware of these issues.

      In the US, gender dyphoria is classified as a mental illness under the DSM and so technically any trans person who has seen a doctor is mentally ill and not allowed to own guns.

      Therefore, trans people will hopefully realize the important of being armed prior to disclosing their trans status to a doctor and decent people should do their best to not only the discredit the DSM as the pseudointellectual biased phrenologyesque crock of shit that it is, but also to have gender dysphoria removed as a psychiatric issue and labeled for what it is, a medical issue resulting from brain differences that requires treatment.

    • Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml
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      4 hours ago

      Assuming you’re American, you do understand the irony of America taking in the most nazi elite and scientists for their own personal projects right? Also if you read mein kampf you’ll find it fascinating how much he was inspired by American legalised racism and ethnic cleanings. America is a nation built like how Israel was, through ideological and legalized genocide, racism, fascism and racism. I’m starting to comprehend how the soviet did the real nazi killing and suffered the real consequences of the Nazis unlike America.

      • in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        WW2 was between Russians and Germans. All the other stuff was barely a side character subplot compared to the Eastern front.

        For example, in the Western front the German forces dealt more casualities to US and UK troops than the Allies did to the Axis by quite a lot too. Reading stories and diaries of American troops they would remark how astonishing it is that their German POWs were all either very young, or very old, either way remarkably unfit for combat. German command in the Western front was in shambles, because the vast majority of their efforts were going to the Eastern front. More Germans died in the battle of Stalingrad alone than in the entirety of the Western front. There were sieges in the Baltics that made Omaha Beach seem like a pretty lucky bet. The Belarusian grassroots genocide by Germans is hardly talked about, yet were just as brutal as they were against jews. The Siege of Leningrad is the type of nightmare fuel, hell on earth that Spielberg would never dream of touching. The West puts so much self importance about their fight against the German Nazi Machine, meanwhile it was the communists who did all the work while Western capitalists profited every step of the way since the beginning. And as you pointed out, America had and still has a strong Nazi following, also curiously backed by billionaires.

        Now the collective West is the new Nazi party, and like it or not it’s up to Russia and China to stop them again.

        EDIT - Just wanted to point out that a lot of the horrors of the Eastern front is equally blamed on Stalin too, Baltic people hate Germany and Russia the same for WW2. Every side of WW2 sucked horrendous ass, and nobody won in WW2 (except for capitalists)

      • daltotron@lemmy.ml
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        3 hours ago

        Yeah, the people who see this as a significant deviation from the norm aren’t exactly incorrect, but I wonder to what degree they really understand the total history and scope of america as it has existed for basically all of it’s span. What we’ve done, in this country.

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      Hey 2A enthusiasts. This is the moment you’ve been saying you need your guns for your entire pathetic lives. Where you at?

      They’re apparently calling for gun control in the threads discussing LGBTQ+ people arming themselves.

      • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        Sounds like they’re still cowards. Well, at least they’re consistent. Enemies that are consistent are easier to study and destroy.

    • Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee
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      4 hours ago

      That moment for 2A enthusaists came when Alabama banned abortion (before Roe v. Wade was overturned) and when Trump was putting children in cages. They didn’t then… they were the Nazis all along. The same people who just wanted to be the Brownshirts, but with their own personal firearms and not something issued to them.

      We’re seeing a similiar bullshit in Israel with West Bank illegal ‘settlers’ carrying M4 pattern rifles with them to the ‘homes’.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 hours ago

    a gesture (…) resembling a Nazi salute

    Fuck off with that shitlib overcautiousness, HuffPo! The only way it could have been any more obviously a Nazi salute would have been if he had screamed “sieg heil!” while doing it!

  • Noxy@pawb.social
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    4 hours ago

    Fucking preach.

    I really hope AOC considers a 2028 run for President.

    Edit: please fuck off about the uncertainty of 2028 elections, I’m excruciatingly aware, your reminders are not helpful.

    • brown567@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      Bold of you to assume there will be a 2028 election

      Edit: commenter made a good point. It’s foolish to abandon any potential avenue of change, even if it seems like a lost cause

    • Scott_of_the_Arctic@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      It’s hilarious that you think you’re getting another election before Vance dies of old age. I hope you’re right of course but I’m pretty sure your future “elections” will be performative. You’re going to have to take that right back.

      • Noxy@pawb.social
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        4 hours ago

        Part of fighting for it involves planning in case the fight is successful, and that planning includes picking candidates, so my original comment stands.

  • BadJojo@communick.news
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    7 hours ago

    Do we though? Do we really, truly, hate Nazis? The evidence so far is not that conclusive.

    I hate Nazis, but I don’t think the country as a whole hates Nazis.

    • espentan@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Well, you certainly used to, judging by the efforts and sacrifices 80 years ago, but there’s certainly a lot of evidence to indicate a lot of Americans of today think you were on the wrong side back then.

      • YarHarSuperstar@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        You may want to reread some history, there were plenty of Nazi sympathizers and collaborators (read: nazis) in the US back then too.

        • espentan@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Oh I’m well aware, but push came to show and the better minds prevailed, back then, and as a result, so did the country.

          I’m not convinced the outcome would’ve been the same today.

    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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      5 hours ago

      Yup. Twice in a row. Exactly as the Nazis did it.

      Stand to attention facing the crowd. Hand to chest, then full extension. Turn around to face the Fuhrer, or if he isn’t there, the Nazi flag. Then stand to attention and sieg heil again.

      He did it. It’s not debatable. Don’t engage in debate with bad actors attempting to rewrite this history. The richest man in the world, who will act in an official capacity in the White House, is openly a Nazi. Because you are a Nazi if you perform a Nazi salute.

    • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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      7 hours ago

      Yeah all these media sources keep saying things like “a day after Musk used an arm gesture, twice, that resembled the Roman salute adopted by the Nazis.”

      It’s blatantly obvious that they’re afraid of getting sued. Kind of like instead of saying someone lied, they’ll soften it up to say they made a statement that some fact checkers may disagree with.

      • funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works
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        7 hours ago

        I remember Robert Evans from BTB saying that when he worked in journalism, ANY story on a rich person was automatically followed up on by a lawsuit from the person in question, so they’d have legal on a retainer ready to respond.

  • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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    8 hours ago

    I love AOC but I sure hope she has a really good security team. Most of us hate Nazis, but a whole lot of Republicans are actually Nazis and they hate and despise her.

  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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    10 hours ago

    If she’s the only one in office that’s willing to say anything about this, we’re in a lot more trouble than we thought.