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He's basically an edge lord 4-channer, Nazi saluting to: "own the libs" is sort of on brand.
I don't think he's a dyed in the wool Führer-lover. I do think he's a hyper insecure, spoiled, man-child with enough ties to the far right to idolize "anti-social behavior" and think he's the hottest shit ever to pull off such a "based" stunt.
A poser; doing loser shit opening the door for someone/something much worse because his idiot brain thinks he's being cute.
I don’t think he’s a dyed in the wool Führer-lover.
No, of course not. He's a dyed-in-the-wool Afrikkkaner. It's a Dutch/English strain of Fascism far more in line with the American brand than the German/Nordic Central European brand.
A poser; doing loser shit opening the door for someone/something much worse because his idiot brain thinks he’s being cute.
A professional sycophant and corrupt corporate hack who has made a cool trillion selling exploding cars, crashing spaceships, and non-existent subway systems. He's anything but a loser, as he's perfectly hacked the modern capitalist system.
The Nazi pastiche he's adopted is intended to keep those super-sized government contracts and cheap private loans coming. Same reason he pays teams of pro-gamers to run his video game accounts and throws the biggest, most debauched orgies in Silicon Valley or Austin, TX. Same reason he nearly killed himself and Peter Thiel doing burnouts in a brand new McLauren.
TrueAnon Podcast has a great three-part series "The Lamest Show On Earth" that takes a deep dive into Musk's background. Does a great job of laying out who this guy is and how he's successfully grifted his way to the pinnacle of the western business ziggurat. The most that can be said of him is that he loves to dominate other people. The explicit flavor of fascism is secondary.
You're not wrong, a lot of these chuds, especially the tech bros, are obviously deeply insecure and have figured out they can't buy authenticity and coolness with money or power. That's where that brittle and mean bitterness they all have about other people living as they choose comes from. But it goes deeper than just emulating edgelords for kicks and covering up for their self-esteem issues.
Doing it and avoiding any tangible punishment or long term fallout demonstrates what a powerful, untouchable person he is to the boot-licking right wing base. The whole goal is to build an in group of followers that is protected with power and privilege (which ensures their loyalty) and this is a signal to them that he can do just that.
It's also a demonstration of unity in having a common enemy, and being willing to do anything to "win". Wether it's politics or a culture war, being willing to escalate is seen as a marker of strength. It's the only kind of political and social interaction they can understand.
You're right that he's likely not a hard core admirer of Hitler. It's not about a particular political standpoint, it's about having the power to do whatever he wants and making sure people know it.
I'm starting to think that doing enough Ketamine to take down a racehorse just before giving a speech to the entire world's media, was probably not a good idea...
Being a Nazi doesn't help either.
Inventing a time machine that lets you go back and kill hitler before he gets in power is a very common power fantasy.
The Great Man Theory take is that Hitler was saying and doing a kind of politics unique to his historical moment. He didn't stumble into the right beer hall at the right moment and echo the sentiments of tens of thousands of his disgruntled military peers but transformed the popular views of a nation. His rhetoric was brilliantly gripping, rather than just heavily circulated. His political maneuverings were expert rather than just stubbornly persistent. His military strategies were the product of genius rather than meth and recklessness.
Go back in time and kill Hitler and you don't fix the post-war disparity between the WW1 Axis and Ally powers. You don't discourage re-militarization in a country overrun by US military contractors that saw massive profits in rearming the German state. You certainly don't mitigate the impacts of the post-1917 wave after wave of Red Scares or keep Henry Ford from circulating "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" in every Ford dealership on either side of the Atlantic.
At best, you spare Charlie Chaplain the shame of shaving off his tiny mustache. But there's a strong reason to believe the post-Depression fascist wave that crested into WW2 was over-determined.
Yet today when Americans have 2A and 11 guns per person instead of killing tyrants they'll side with them out of convenience and self preservation. The apathetic centrist majority who think political illiteracy is the reasonable and sensible position are the biggest asset to fascism.
That's the thing about the 2A-people, no matter how much you fantasize about taking on the government guerilla-style... with the two party system as it is, at least half of the people with guns will join the opposing side...
Unless, of course, you turn it into a matter of partisan identity and the other side willingly plays along, meaning it's more like 60/30 in your favor.
The fact this is a debatable thing is the shame of humanity.
You know what's even worst? ADL.