“We can laugh at everything, but not with everyone,” said the French comedian Pierre Desproges.
Take a joke about Jews.
The same joke, told in the same way, takes on a completely different connotation depending on whether it is told in an assembly of Jews or in an assembly of neo-Nazis.
In the first context, it is self-deprecation (an art in which the Jews are masters). In the second, it is hate speech.
However, it’s the same joke.
Same story, same punch.
In the first room, we laugh until we cry. In the second, we feel a deep unease.
ARE YOU FOOLING ME?
If it was some random politician who gave a salute that looked suspiciously like a Nazi salute (and, yes, Elon Musk’s salute looked pretty darn like a Nazi salute, no matter what some people blinded by their beliefs say), it would have passed like butter in a pan and no one would talk about it today.
But he was the close advisor of a politician who has boundless admiration for authoritarian leaders. Advisor who, moreover, has just supported a far-right party in Germany.
No wonder some people cringed!
Trump has just pardoned 1500 cuckoos who stormed the Capitol! With weapons!
A police officer was killed in this attack! Four peace officers who were seriously injured were so traumatized by this assault on one of the country’s most important democratic institutions that they ended up taking their own lives!
And Republicans are wondering why on earth some people jumped when Musk gave a salute that sounded like “Heil Trump»????
Serious?
The opposite would be surprising!
“Yes, but you take a small detail and magnify it to get clicks and demonize your opponent,” the Republicans say.
-As if Republicans had NEVER done that!
In 2009, when Barack Obama was sworn in for the first time, the Chief Justice made a mistake and recited out of order the solemn text provided for by the American Constitution.
The Republicans climbed into the curtains and repeated ad nauseam that Obama was not really president, because there had been a blunder during his swearing-in!
The Republicans shouted so much that Obama had to organize a second swearing-in at the White House to calm them down!
And it is THEM who give lessons in good manners today?
Are you fucking kidding me?
The same people who keep repeating – wrongly – that Obama is an African and that the Democrats stole the 2021 elections?
FAR FROM CÉLINE
“Yes, but Musk is autistic…”
Um… All autistic people do Nazi salutes?
“He wanted to show his love to his supporters…”
Watch the video. Look at his look. The firmness of his gesture. The way he places his hand – palm down. Arm at 45 degrees.
We are far from Céline Dion who thanks her audience by sweeping the space with an open and generous hand.
I’m not saying Musk is a Nazi.
But we have every reason in the world to find his gesture worrying.
