Day 1
Elon Musk is a lot of things, but Nazi ain’t one of them: Yesterday, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president. True to form, he held a rally afterward where he signed executive orders on stage, seemingly unable or unwilling to distinguish between campaign-rally mode and actual lawmaking mode. The crowd seemed to love it. We’ll get to those executive orders in a second, but first: Elon Musk spoke and made some sort of bombastic gesture, saying “My heart goes out to you” and “It is thanks to you that the future of civilization is assured,” noting that some elections don’t really matter very much but that this one did.
Naturally, people are losing their fucking minds over this:
Historian of fascism here. That was a Nazi salute – and a very belligerent one too https://t.co/PB9sFCVJGA
— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) January 20, 2025
“Did Elon Musk Seriously Just Do a Nazi Salute at Trump’s Inauguration?” asks The New Republic. Um, no. He didn’t. And it’s kind of insane that the media appears to be getting ready to do this whole thing again—the one where Trump, and any Trump affiliate, gets called a Nazi over and over again. Musk was kind of just gesticulating wildly the whole time, as he does when he gets excited. And, look, you may not want to colonize Mars or have a million babies (with a vast array of gals) or replace your conventional car with an electric vehicle or drive in the tunnel under Las Vegas, but you’re fooling yourself if you think Musk’s pattern of behavior is consistent with that of a Nazi; ethnonationalism ain’t his thing, nor is government suppression of speech, nor is rounding up political enemies and putting them in camps. Calm the hell down.
Trump tries to end birthright citizenship: Trump’s flurry of executive orders indicates all his tough talk on immigration was much more than bluster. Despite its likely conflict with the 14th Amendment, an executive order was signed yesterday by Trump that would revoke our country’s longstanding tradition of granting birthright citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. California’s attorney general has already said he will challenge this order in court; expect him to be joined by many other states’ attorneys general.
SHOCKING but not shocking. As I predicted, Trump’s birthright citizenship EO includes a Kamala Harris clause, specifically designed to deny the legitimacy of her US citizenship as the child of someone with a temporary status. This order jeopardizes the citizenship of millions… pic.twitter.com/J82coOOA3b
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) January 21, 2025
Trump also signed this executive order, which asks for deportations to happen not in order of security risk, contradicting everything J.D. Vance had been saying on the campaign trail:
As I predicted, Trump has signed an order deprioritizing public safety threats for removal, requiring that DHS target anyone removable regardless of their security risk. This EO is a dangerous threat to the public, diverting resources away from critical security tasks. pic.twitter.com/4hxodOTdAR
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) January 21, 2025
But it’s even worse! Trump’s order requires the attorney general to prioritize misdemeanor criminal cases for illegal entry OVER the rest of its criminal workload: terrorism, fraud, trafficking, homicides, and other crimes just got bumped down. This is insanity. pic.twitter.com/gfk4XKiPav
— David J. Bier (@David_J_Bier) January 21, 2025
With yet another stroke of his pen, Trump appears to have ended the refugee program, which has resettled some 3 million people since its creation in 1980.
“Nearly 1,660 Afghans cleared by the U.S. government to resettle in the U.S., including family members of active-duty U.S. military personnel, are having their flights canceled under President Donald Trump’s order suspending U.S. refugee programs, a U.S. official and a leading r
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