The NYTimes, Washington Post, and other outlets that spent 2024 translating Donald Trump’s garble into English are now defending the body language of the US’s actual President and product of apartheid-era South African Elon Musk.
The born-and-bred Afrikaner Musk offered up a straight-arm salute at Trump’s You’re-a-Big-Boy-Now Party (held indoors) that has been associated since the 1930s with Hitler and the genocidal regime of Nazi-era Germany, but in the wake of what, to anyone with a generally normally functioning brain, would be interpreted as a gesture espousing White supremacy, mainstream media rushed to assure the public that no, Musk isn’t a racist weirdo.
“Well, actually,” said The Washington Post, pushing its glasses back up its nose while glancing around nervously to make sure no editorials supporting equality had gotten through Bezos’ filter, “The salute dates back to the Roman era and so maybe Musk just is a fan of history.”
The Anti-Defamation League, over dinner, while acknowledging that the stiff-arm salute has been associated for decades with Hitler, argued that maybe the new President Musk just doesn’t have good control of his arms and in fact, was attempting to stretch but whose dad bod didn’t have the full reach. “As he didn’t actually yell, ‘Heil Hitler,’ it doesn’t count,” said the ADL, wordlessly gesturing for the waiter to come bring its check, which the waiter did promptly. “Really, he should be celebrated for attempting to improve his physical flexibility in front of such a large crowd of billionaires. We should all be so brave.”
“CHILL OUT SHEEPLE HE WAS HAILING A CAB DUH” said the New York Times as it returned to counting rubles. When asked about Musk’s support of the far-right German party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the Times shrugged and said, “Big deal, so do we.”