He’s giving a full demonstration of just how untouchable he feels.

This is such a huge part of the psychology behind authoritarianism. It's about harsh rules and repression, and the perverse enjoyment of the privileged few, that can be above the rules. It's like a schoolyard bully, really, beating you up but also snitching on you to the teachers, and then enjoying the teachers not believing you. The hypocrisy is not a fault within authoritarianism, it's an essential component, of how it functions ideologically.

Taking away their feeling of being untouchable, is a massive part of how to combat it. That requires, at this point, revolutionary change, because damn, the foundations of property are all in their favour.

What little boy? You aren't referring to that ambulatory kevlar vest with the overactive nasal mine, are you?

If you pull a Trump card to save your businesses, gotta keep it wet for the long haul.

Here in Germany the far right is painting him as a commie :)

“Hitler was merely the German Pinochet, saving his country from socialism”

He just wanted national socialism guyz!

Anyone who calls it a "gesture" should be made to do it in a public setting on camera.

"Do the gesture"

the billionaire has denied he made a Nazi salute and played off backlash with Nazi puns

Another claim that he actually denied doing it. Can anyone point to the quote of his denying it was a Nazi salute? Lots of publications speaking for him.

The 2nd one was even more clearer & Europeans are the authority on what's is a Sieg Heil & what is not, Americans don't get to decide that

Yeah. “It wasn’t a Nazi salute, but if it was then Hitler wasn’t that bad.”

I want them off this planet, though I’d also settle for them being deep inside it.

It’s also part of the antagonism towards the federal workforce and an extension of the “deep state” conspiracy theory.

I can’t remember what this specific rhetorical device is called, but he’s luring people in with something that appears true at face value so that they arrive at a conclusion they wouldn’t logically arrive at otherwise: Hitler personally didn’t kill millions of people, but the Nazi bureaucracy and military did. Therefore, Hitler isn’t to blame for all the Nazi atrocities, the bureaucracy was.

Musk is redirecting blame, like you pointed out, away from leadership and instead leading people to the conclusion that if government were smaller, then evil wouldn’t have happened. What is especially stupid about this line of reasoning is that it will eventually lead to ideas like, “if we give the president more power and consolidate all decision making to a small group, then public servants won’t mindlessly perpetuate evil,” as if this isn’t exactly what happened in every authoritarian regime right before they started doing real evil.

Wouldn't that exonerated Charles Manson if it actually worked like that?

let's hope "I was only retweeting" becomes the next Nuremberg defense

Musk could shit his pants and would still try to find someone else to blame it on.

Just like my grandpa.

Inb4 musk accuses Forbes of being radical left Marxists

Bots, hopefully

Get what?