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.

  • boonhet@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    Well yeah but AOC has darker skin, therefore dirty immigrant. Elon Musk of course is lighter and has more money so he’s a trueborn American and his opinion matters.

    Just don’t look up where either of those people were born.

    • loulan@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      Americans have zero excuse. You could argue that Germany was ruined by WW1 and the war reparations back in the 30s. But the US economy is doing much better than all other developed economies these days. Americans voted fascists in just because.

      • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        Our top line numbers may look good but there’s real problems under the hood. Our homelessness is the highest it’s been since we started tracking it and food has increased in price much farther than most people’s wages. It’s not about the gross amount of money. It’s about what that money can buy. And the answer is increasingly, not much.

      • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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        3 hours ago

        WW II was probably the best thing to happen to America, economically and in a lot of other fields, science and tech for example.

        The world wouldn’t have half of the technology we have today if it wasn’t for America figuring all this shit out during and after that war.

        And America got to keep everything, unlike some other countries. There really is no excuse.

        Boomers are called that for a reason. Families not only boomed, but most parts of life as well.

        (Note Im not advocating for war, Im looking at history)

      • samus12345@lemm.ee
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        4 hours ago

        Because capitalism has ensured that the “good economy” isn’t reaching the average working class person like it should.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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    1 day 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.

  • StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world
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    1 day 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?

    • Anahkiasen@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      23 hours ago

      Thank you, this comment section has some of this cynisim already. Yes she’s saying very eviden things but the other side is winning precisely by creating a culture of fear and overwhelming toxicity and locking you in echo chambers that eat at you by making you think their normal is The normal. It’s not lying than to project what you want into the world until enough people are in on it and pressure bad elements into hiding or into changing path.

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      1 day 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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        23 hours 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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      1 day 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.

      • StopTouchingYourPhone@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Nothing wrong with being cynical and dejected given the givens imo. I’ve worked with immigrants and refugees in Canada for over a decade, and my wife and I put our Go Bag together last year for when the nazis come to kill us and take our shit. She escaped one war already and knows what’s up. The threat is real.

        But the enemy LOVES it when we sit and stew in our sadness and rage. They literally study how to make us give up, and these screens we’re constantly touching are totally part of it. Don’t believe the hype. We have allies and options.

        snip from the last good thing I read on reddit:

        The term “disinformation” undersells the problem. Because much of Russia’s social media activity is not trying to spread fake news. Instead, the goal is to divide and conquer by making Western audiences depressed and extreme.

        Sometimes, through brigading and trolling. Other times, by posting hyper-negative or extremist posts or opinions about the U.S. the West over and over, until readers assume that’s how most people feel. And sometimes, by using trolls to disrupt threads that advance Western unity.

        As the RAND think tank explained, the Russian strategy is volume and repetition, from numerous accounts, to overwhelm real social media users and create the appearance that everyone disagrees with, or even hates, them. And it’s not just low-quality bots. Per RAND,

        Russian propaganda is produced in incredibly large volumes and is broadcast or otherwise distributed via a large number of channels. … According to a former paid Russian Internet troll, the trolls are on duty 24 hours a day, in 12-hour shifts, and each has a daily quota of 135 posted comments of at least 200 characters.

  • masquenox@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 day 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.

  • Gammelfisch@lemmy.world
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    22 hours ago

    Damn straight. Every US WW II rolled in their grave twice when the sack of shit “Leon Hitler” went on stage. AOC, find a way to fix the Democratic party.

  • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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    1 day 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?

    • Shezzagrad@lemmy.ml
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      1 day 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.

      • daltotron@lemmy.ml
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        1 day 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.

      • in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        1 day ago

        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)

        • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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          13 hours ago

          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.

          I was expecting hexbear or .ml for this sort of claim

          • in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            10 hours ago

            Who do you think will stop them then? Are you counting on Americans to “rise up” like the average German moderate in the 1930’s did?

              • in4apenny@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                8 hours ago

                I don’t get it though, I don’t even read Marx. The fact that it was Russia and China who stopped fascists last time, and might have to do it again because the West is doing the opposite of stopping fascism, how is that Marxist? It’s literally what happened.

                • Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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                  7 hours ago

                  You have no idea how “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.” sounds tankie as fuck?

    • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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      1 day ago

      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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        1 day 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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      1 day 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’.

    • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
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      1 day 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.

      • Snapz@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        LBGTQIA+ folks aren’t magical unicorns… They can have garbage takes just like anyone else.

        You support the NRA?

        You want to repeal all gun regulation?

        Defend both of those immediately or show yourself here as a troll aiming to sow discord along an oddly narrow path.

        • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          if you look at my post history, which is filled with unmitigated pro 2A pro-NRA posts, you’ll see I’m not a troll.

          We would live in a much more polite society if everyone were armed.

          The fact that 2A can be limited if a person gets diagnosed with depression makes it more likely people, especially men, avoid mental health treatment (and then eventually commit suicide).

          Gender dyphoria is considered a mental illness and is already a potential large attack surface for conservatives to disarms trans people (to use a software metaphore).

          The NRA is in favor of repealing needless pointless gun regulations which ahve horrible secondary effects and reduce the safety of all.

          I also disagree that all LGBTQI+ people take out the garbage.

  • TachyonTele@lemm.ee
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    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.

      • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
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        5 hours ago

        Really, it’s these establishment Democrats that have made it the party of slow reaction times, large government, and inefficiency. AOC should be elevated, and elevated, and elevated again. She’s an American hero and patriot and should have been given more responsibility long ago.

      • danc4498@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Democratic leadership is gonna fuck everything up. We need a new branch of the party similar to what the tea party did for Republicans. They may not be relevant today, but I believe they permanently changed the Republican Party (for the worse in my liberal opinion).

        • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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          23 hours ago

          Yeah, they’re still trying to litigate which progressive group to blame, instead of looking in the mirror and saying “holy fuck we really screwed the pooch, didn’t we?”

          The “adults in the room” sleepwalked us into a fascist sweep of the elections, and they don’t seem to see anything fucking wrong with that. The Democratic Party no longer deserves to be a party after this. This will go down as one of the most catastrophic own-goals in the history of the republic, if not the absolute worst. Yes, I am fully aware of the civil war, and the antebellum political context, and my statement stands.

          • danc4498@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            They lost to the worst candidate possible two times. This one was legit too. It’s frustrating that Kamala Harris picked a fantastic VP nominee, then sidelined him so she could share a stage with Dick Cheney. That’s why she lost.

            • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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              22 hours ago

              It genuinely beggars belief. Walz had his head on SO FUCKING STRAIGHT. If they’d have used his points instead of the idiot fucking consultant brain trust, I think they would have absolutely cleaned up and won in a landslide. But noooooooo tHe cONsULtaNtS KnoW wHaT ThEY’rE dOinG LeT’S giVe tHEm MOre mONeY ANd gET LiZ cHENeY iN HerE.

              Fucking christ. I’m torn between laughing hysterically and just sobbing uncontrollably. It was so fucking winnable, and the adults in the room just absolutely, thoroughly shit the bed. They have no fucking clue what they’re doing, but they’re STILL convinced they do. Biden is apparently convinced he could have won it if he stayed in, the fucking tool. Schumer just texted me for more money as if he wasn’t a huge part of what fucking got us here in the first fucking place. Harris kow-tow’d to the DNC establishment. Pelosi… don’t get me fucking started. And they’re all fucking pointing fingers at each other and refusing to take a single fucking shred of blame. I’d say they should be fucking outlawed from engaging in politics as a hyperbolic expression of outrage, but Trump is probably going to try to do that anyways, in addition to whatever other political persecution he can convince the DoJ up… AND NONE OF THEM SEEM TO FUCKING GET THAT LAST PART. Their lives are potentially going to be on the line and they’re still convinced they’re playing fucking poker or some shit.

              But anyways. How was your day?

    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Fascism isn’t coming.

      It’s here.

      And the number of people standing up against it is so small it’s practically the butt of a joke.

      We’re cooked. Buy a gun. Protect yourself.

      • anomnom@sh.itjust.works
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        1 day ago

        Build a drone. Learn how to fly it. Even better for long range, are the wood and paper rc planes that are expendable and being used in Ukraine.

        Or designing our own versions of the cardboard ones from all our empty amazon boxes.

    • DarkFuture@lemmy.world
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      1 day 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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      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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        1 day 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.

      • phughes@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        He did it better the second time around.

        The first time looked a little awkward (though definitely recognizable as a Nazi salute.) The second one was spot on.

  • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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    1 day ago

    Behold the one prominent US politician with any principles.

    And for that she will never be allowed near any real power…

    • Zombiepirate@lemmy.world
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      It’s one of the reasons reactionaries hate her so much.

      And also that she’s a woman of color who didn’t stay “in her place.”

      And it’s so annoying to hear liberals parrot the same shit because the conglomerates who own liberal media don’t want to change the status quo.

    • taiyang@lemmy.world
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      There’s a few more, but she’s the most charismatic. It’s a shame too, they tend to win more than their moderate counterparts during midterm races.