Politics - News Analysis
Pennsylvania GOP Lawmaker ‘Finds Out’ After Duplicating Elon Musk’s Disgusting Inauguration Salute on TikTok
She didn't just make the same gesture — she used the same language to cover it up.
A lot has been made of Elon Musk’s “sieg heil” salute on the day of Trump’s inauguration, with most news outlets calling it at the very least “controversial.” I hope, however, that you noticed that in that first sentence, I called it exactly what it was.
There was no mistaking exactly what Musk was doing when he pounded his chest and snapped his arm up and out, palm down: It was the Hitler salute done by the Führer himself and his Nazi goons to identify themselves to one another.
Sure, he said “My heart goes out to you” after making the gesture. But we all know Elon Musk knows how to make a heart gesture with his hands. Here he is doing it a year and a half ago, right on Capitol Hill:
Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla, makes a heart with his hands during a Senate bipartisan Artificial Intelligence (AI) Insight Forum on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. pic.twitter.com/6uZ0hS3ABs
— Al Drago (@Al_Drago) September 13, 2023
But Musk didn’t make a cute little hands-heart, he, uh, did this:
THERE’S NO WAY ELON MUSK DID A SIEG HEIL AT TRUMP’S INAUGURATION.
A FUCKING NAZI SALUTE AS CLEAR AS DAY. WHAT IS HAPPENING. pic.twitter.com/vw232p7Odn
— mils ✩˚.⋆ (@thelorebitch) January 20, 2025
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
To anyone who knows literally nothing about Elon Musk, it might be easy and even tempting to accept the semi-plausible deniability of the phrase he used. But for the rest of us, who watched him buy Twitter and immediately un-ban the accounts of people who were expressly, overtly, loudly Nazis, it was pretty clear what he was doing.
We certainly didn’t need to wait and see him do a virtual address to the current neo-Nazi party in Germany, AfD, telling them at their campaign launch yesterday to stop feeling guilty for their Nazi past.
Republican voters committed to licking Donald Trump’s loafers the current president, however, are loathe to admit that the First Buddy could do anything so heinous. They have been defending him, primarily using the fact that he said the thing about the heart. They know we know they know, but they’re clinging to that semi-plausible deniability for dear life.
They can’t possibly be siding with NAZIS, after all.
In fact, one MAGA lawmaker in Towamencin Township, Pennsylvania took it to the extreme, performing a nearly identical gesture, and using the phrase “my heart goes out to you” to excuse it. When I say “nearly identical,” what I mean is that even Township Supervisor Laura Smith knew that Musk’s gesture was unmistakable, so she softened hers by doing a multi-pat on the chest instead of the pound-and-snap that Herr Musk performed.
This woman doing a Nazi salute is Laura Smith and she sits on the Towamencin Township Board of Supervisors in Pennsylvania pic.twitter.com/ZJlEfaxrsT
— Fifty Shades of Whey (@davenewworld_2) January 25, 2025
She’s deleted the TikTok video, of course, but the internet never forgets, and it will never let her forget that the way she “checks in on her friends” is to use the gesture that — *checks notes from earlier* — Nazis use to identify one another.
Smith posted the video Saturday and had resigned by Sunday, making her the fastest Nazi to show remorse since the second guy at the Nuremberg trials. Her resignation letter was posted on the Township’s website:
A video I posted recently to social media has been greatly mischaracterized. Not wishing to give offense, I removed the video from my accounts. I abhor racism, anti-Semitic or discrimination in any fashion or form and my record as a township supervisor attests to my commitment to treat all people with dignity and respect.
To allow the Township to move forward without the encumbrance of the fallout of my video, I tender my resignation from the Towamencin Township Board of Supervisors effective immediately.
Respectfully,
Laura Smith
The board plans to accept her resignation the next time they have a public meeting — a week from tomorrow, which is quite fitting for this see-you-next-Tuesday of a woman.
Two board members spoke out over the weekend. Fellow board member Joyce Snyder told Action News 6, “I want to say that I find her actions repugnant. Next, I ask her to think about her effectiveness as a leader.” Another board member, Kofi Osei, told reporters, “I condemn this blatant antisemitism expressed by Laura Smith in no uncertain terms and believe she should apologize and resign.”
Jason Holtzman, the director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of the Jewish Federation of Greater Philadelphia, issued a statement as well:
“Public officials have a responsibility to ensure their words and actions do not perpetuate antisemitic propaganda and tropes. Ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day this Monday, January 27, it is even more important that we all make the commitment to educating ourselves on the lessons of the Holocaust and be resolute in condemning this hate in all forms.”
As for me, in honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, I offer this:
Real Americans hate Nazis. pic.twitter.com/7C5awiST3k
— Drewbear (@infuzi0n) January 27, 2025
Comments
Comments are currently closed.