I think some parts of it are to be expected, right? There has been a continual slide to the right in this country for a long time. And we are seeing some of the more enthusiastic elements come out. But, you know, I didn't expect, like, a Nazi salute at the inauguration. Yeah. I didn't expect all of this to come to a head so quickly.

Speaking of the Nazi salute, I saw, are you familiar with Brianna Wu? Yes. Brianna Wu is like a trans woman who was really awfully victimized by Gamergate and who has, in more recent years, become sort of like a right-wing mouthpiece.

Yeah. I'm just saying, know a warrior for justice

well right that's what she would say right right she is just every day wakes up and it's like i need to guarantee my float on the bad take parade and yesterday she she tweeted regarding the elon musk nazi salute actually i'm just gonna read it yeah i'm

gonna read it i'm excited to hear what it is this

is my favorite brianna woo tweet of all time she wrote you know what other people can decide if it's a nazi salute i'm not getting involved

that was her take you know what maybe

yeah why not you know i've

seen everything from you know who amongst us doesn't get awkward yeah and nervous and a little shy and throw up a salute yeah

yeah yes i saw lots of autistic people being like hi i am autistic and my autism does not make me a nazi yeah like

i think it's safe to say the guy who's turned twitter into a safe space for nazis threw up the salute right it's

just it's very unambiguous looking at

it one taker theory i saw in it that i really liked was that there's a lot of right-wingers who do this but try to do it subtly and they try to do it in the midst of there's like a clear intentional action and then they obscure it. And that he's just too fucking awkward to actually pull that off. And so he got too excited at the prospect of

controlling

people with like a subtle salute

and just did it. That makes sense to me. One take that I saw about the Nazi salute that also made a lot of sense to me was that what people are so intensely pushing back on is not necessarily what they saw, which I think is like a very unambiguous Nazi salute twice. But what it means for the movement that they have committed themselves to and people not wanting to acknowledge like what that means about what they're a part of and what they've been fighting for and what they voted for.

Yeah, people not wanting to realize they're the bad guy. I

love this Brianna Wu tweet. Other people can decide if it's a Nazi salute. I'm not getting involved. To be honest, I wish she would commit to this attitude on more issues. Yeah. Listen. Brianna, if you're listening to this, continue to not get involved. We love that.

It's great. So

I wanted to start this episode with sort of a historical anecdote and see how you feel about it. Do you know about the Nazi radio?

Yes. During World War II?

Yeah. In the Weimar Republic in Germany, which was the period in Germany before Hitler rose to power, Germans just didn't really have personal radios unless they were really rich. Germany was behind on the technology. And so personal radios were too expensive. And the only people who had them were rich people. And then in the beginning of Hitler's rise to power, the German government collaborated with German radio manufacturers to develop a radio that was half the price of all the other radios available in Germany. And the Nazi propaganda ministry promoted the fuck out of these things. And within a year, it became the top selling radio in Germany. Everyone had it, the farmers could afford it, people in rural areas could afford it. And they use this radio to push out Nazi propaganda. And it was a hugely successful tool for them. That just felt like a timely

anecdote.