It's Time to Trust Our Own Eyes

They want us to doubt what is plainly obvious. We can't let them.

Whatever could this mean? (Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images)

It’s a rare privilege to be able to watch a cottage industry spring up fully formed and unbidden before your very eyes. So I count myself lucky to have been there at the exact moment when some of the most credulous fuckers around decided that now is the time to come together and defend Elon Musk for making an enthusiastic Nazi salute at Donald Trump’s inauguration rally. Why do they think Musk is worth defending? Who can say. Maybe they’re trying to curry favor with the wealthiest man in human history? Maybe they’re pedantic weirdos? Maybe they’re just monumentally stupid. If I had to bet, I’d say it’s a combination of all of the above.

What’s clear, however, is that there is now an entire cohort of politics-knowers who claim, totally straight faced, that this…

…is merely a benign act of over-enthusiasm (twice!) by a good hearted, misunderstood billionaire with nothing but love in his heart. Ain’t he cute?

There are so many of these Musk-defenders tripping over themselves to defend Elon’s virtue that we can even begin to lump their arguments into several distinct types. Let’s review.