Elon Musk vs Cory Booker: A tale of two 'Nazi salutes'

“If it looks like a Nazi salute and smells like a Nazi salute, but one guy’s a tech billionaire and the other is a Democrat senator, only one of them ends up being banned in Berlin.”Welcome to yet another episode of Who Gets Cancelled Today?—where the rules are made up, the outrage is algorithmic, and consistency is strictly optional.Let’s set the stage.In January 2025, at Donald Trump’s second inauguration—a carnival of CPAC cosplay, Mar-a-Lago loyalists, and Liberty University dropouts—Elon Musk stepped on stage, placed his hand over his heart, and extended his arm outward with the ceremonial stiffness of a Leni Riefenstahl extra. Reuters confirms the gesture and backlash.Germany, where the Nazi salute is criminalised when used in ideological contexts, responded with moral indigestion and political outrage. Politicians demanded travel bans. German media erupted. The New York Times ran grim explainer columns. MSNBC activated their "Rise of Fascism" chyron package. (No, seriously, they have one.)The Anti-Defamation League, bless their diplomatically exhausted souls, tried to de-escalate: they called it “an awkward gesture made in a moment of enthusiasm.” But that didn't stop former ADL director Abraham Foxman from calling it exactly what it looked like: a Nazi salute. BBC and Haaretz captured the range of reactions.Musk, predictably, memed through the chaos. He dismissed the outrage as “dirty tricks” and said the “‘everyone is Hitler’ attack is sooo tired.” His actual words on X/Twitter.Meanwhile, some far-right Telegram channels threw digital confetti.Fast forward to May 2025. Enter Senator Cory Booker—America’s favourite motivational speaker in a suit. At the California Democratic Convention, Booker made a gesture eerily similar: hand over heart, arm extended outward, open palm. Footage surfaced on social media.Cue: crickets.No Germany. No ADL. No CNN panels dissecting palm angles. No panicked Atlantic thinkpieces. Just a quick clarification from Booker’s spokesperson: “He was waving to the audience.” Case closed. Nothing to see here.Piers Morgan, ever the thundercloud of transatlantic outrage, noticed. He highlighted the double standard and triggered an X-storm.Elon the Meme Lord vs Cory the ChoirboyElon is the algorithm’s favourite villain: a ketamine-fuelled libertarian who co-signed Trump’s chaos and dropped $275 million to support the re-election campaign. He’s what happens when Reddit becomes sentient and buys a stake in SpaceX.So when Musk makes a vaguely Roman gesture? Of course it’s fascism. Throw in some AI-enhanced screenshots and a Daily Show segment, and suddenly it’s 1933 again.Cory Booker, on the other hand, is Progressive America’s wholesome avatar—the kind who quotes Rumi during climate speeches. His identical gesture? A heartwarming wave. If Elon had done it while holding a “Biden 2024” placard, Vox would’ve called it “a subversive reclaiming of classical Americana.”In this economy of curated outrage, Musk trades at Tesla volatility. Every blink is a Bitcoin crash. Booker? He’s a mutual fund of liberal goodwill. You’d need a Wagner soundtrack and SS cosplay before NPR considers it problematic.But here’s the rub: when the rules of moral outrage change depending on the party—or the palm—you can kiss public trust goodbye. Remember when the Left said “symbols matter”? Apparently not when it’s one of their own accidentally doing a salute straight out of Triumph of the Will: The Musical.There’s an old Dr Strangelove scene where the titular character can't stop his arm from flying up in a Nazi salute. That’s what this feels like. Except instead of satire, we now have real-life Democrats doing the salute, Republicans doing the same, and both sides frantically uploading context to cloud drives of morality.The media? Just a referee selectively enforcing the rules.So here’s your closing thought: if you’re going to raise your hand in American politics, make sure it’s the correct hand, with the correct party ID, at the correct convention—preferably surrounded by coastal elites and NPR donors. Otherwise, you might find yourself Photoshopped into history’s darkest moments and banned from Bavaria.Because in today’s reality-TV democracy, gestures are never just gestures. Unless, of course, they are.