Musk's Salute!

Given the millions Elon Musk spent getting Donald Trump elected he will have a lot of influence on the new administration. He is the richest man on planet Earth, owner of Tesla, Boring Company, Space X, X-formerly Twitter, and Starlink. It has led many to question the very origins of this man. South African-born, Canadian, and now American. Has there ever been a phenomenon like Musk? Some in religious circles see him as the anti-Christ. Others see him as an alien or more accurately a Martian. Some ask why he is so obsessed with the red planet. Musk even plays up to this because he likes to keep people guessing or knows something we don't!

Once upon a time, Musk was a left winger and a backer of the Democratic party. So, what made the tech billionaire go from one extreme to the other? One has to consider how left-wing the Democrats became under Biden. Biden himself was never ultra-left, however, he seems to have been a prisoner to the woke agenda around him. Kamala Harris was seen as part of this, whether she was or not or just gossip we will never know. However, it was enough, for Musk to jump sides. Musk nailed his flag to the Musk pole and backed him. As said earlier, Musk invested millions of Dollars in the Trump campaign. So did he get the orange one re-elected? Remember this is accurate because Trump was the 45th president and now is the 47th president. Offering voters bribes of a million dollars certainly. Musk helped Trump get elected even if he wasn't the only thing that got him back into the Oval Office.

Whether we like it or not, for ill and good, Trump is in power for four years. He has already signed a raft of things into law. He will be radically different from Biden. Green energy is off the agenda, as Trump said alarmingly "Drill baby drill"! There will be no more obsessions with what sex or what race does what job. Trump said under him it would be a meritocratic society. Free speech is back under him. And yes, before the century was out, as Piers Morgan observed, Trump echoed Kennedy's famous words. Putting a man on the moon before the decade was out. Only with Trump it was putting humans on Mars. Planting the American flag on Mars. Trump also revived the mantra "Manifest Destiny"!

Manifest Destiny was about the US expanding across the North American continent. Settlers from the East Coast opened up the interior of the North American continent. Supposedly civilizing the wild frontier as they went railroad, towns, cities, industry, etc. While there were benefits as the US was a growing nation there were also harmful things. Wildlife was destroyed, deforestation and Native Americans became strangers in their land. So, Manifest Destiny 2.0 will not be a reopening up of the US interior it is more about America's destiny in the stars. When Trump mentioned "Occupying Mars" as Musk's slogan goes, the Martian, (sorry a slip of the tongue there!) Elon punched the air. To invoke "Manifest Destiny", however, is controversial. Native Americans will be saying: "Uh oh, here we go again, we saw how the policies of "Manifest Destiny" 1.0 went"! Not that we are expecting to encounter Native Martians when we get there unless Elon knows something we don't!

Right-wing nut jobs (sorry dear fascists-not) have been waxing lyrical about a salute Musk did. Musk after the swearing-in of the once and future President, did something controversial. He touched his chest at the podium and then pointed his arm in the air. It seemed to be a gesture of connecting with the crowd. Some have said it was a Roman imperial salute. Given Trump's views on American expansionism in: Canada, Greenland, Panama Canal, etc, the salute is controversial.

Finally, even more controversial is that some think it was a "Seig Heil" Nazi salute. Gestures can be misinterpreted. Only Elon himself knows what he was thinking when he did that salute. Whatever was on Musk's mind when he did it has people sitting up and talking about it. And maybe, that was Musk's intention. He knows he has a reputation for being unconventional. He knows the media follows him like bees around honey (I could have said something else!). So if it was intentional, Musk knows it will give him the spotlight he craves. So is Musk an attention seeker, well, I'll leave that for you to decide!

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