Remember when Elon Musk put his hand over his heart and extended his arm outward, saying, “My heart goes out to you," and the left lost its collective mind?
The narrative machine kicked into overdrive. Late-night hosts piled on. Blue-check activists flooded social media with slow-motion clips and ominous captions. Stephen Colbert delivered what he clearly thought was a devastating line, “Now, I don't know if Musk intended to do a Nazi salute. He says he is not a Nazi, but what I do know is people who aren't Nazis know how to avoid doing a Nazi salute."
So, I guess this makes Stephen Colbert a Nazi? pic.twitter.com/NI8YcqtWqH
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) January 23, 2025
The entire narrative was absurd, and even the Anti-Defamation League stepped in and debunked the whole thing. Didn't matter. The left kept pushing the story anyway, because the goal was never accuracy. It was destruction.
The consequences were real. Vandals defaced Tesla vehicles with swastikas. They attacked dealerships. Media pressure mounted on President Trump to remove Musk from his advisory role at DOGE.
The hypocrisy was unreal. In May 2025, Sen. Cory Booker infamously closed his speech at the California Democratic Convention by placing his hand over his heart, then extending his arm outward with an open palm — the exact gesture the media spent weeks calling fascist. Suddenly, the same press corps that branded Musk a Nazi was twisting itself into pretzels to explain why Booker’s gesture was okay, but Musk’s was not. The Daily Beast argued that "Booker's gesture, with arm moving forward and fingers splayed, differs slightly from Musk's — whose fingers were tight and arm moved upwards and diagonally — but clearly not enough to avoid controversy," while framing the backlash as conservatives "melting down." Newsweek noted Booker made the gesture "though not as forcefully as Musk did it.”
Will the media respond the same way to Cory Booker waving to the crowd as they did to Elon Musk waving to the crowd or was it all just performative nonsense when Elon did it? pic.twitter.com/Wm8cm8V31y
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 1, 2025
Which brings me to Graham Platner.
Platner is the Democrat candidate for U.S. Senate in Maine. He also has a Nazi tattoo on his chest and a documented history of antisemitism. Over the weekend, photos went viral showing Platner at a rally making a gesture that looks strikingly similar to what the media spent months calling proof of Musk's secret Nazi sympathies.
I’m literally shaking rn
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 19, 2026
Is this Democrat candidate for US Senate in Maine Graham Platner doing the nazi salute?
I’m sure CNN and MSNBC will be all over this! pic.twitter.com/4kO51vYbIl
The silence from that same media is deafening. No slow-motion analysis. No panel discussions. No late-night monologues. The story simply doesn't exist in mainstream coverage, despite the photos circulating widely.
The left spent the better part of 2025 trying to destroy Musk over a wave — a man with no Nazi tattoos, no history of antisemitism, no credible connection to white nationalism of any kind. The media treated it as a settled fact. The damage to his reputation and his company was measurable.
Platner, meanwhile, literally has a Nazi tattoo. His antisemitic history is documented. And when photos surface of him appearing to make the very gesture Democrats weaponized against Musk? Crickets.
To be clear: Platner was obviously waving. I’m not trying to say he actually gave a Nazi salute, but after decades of Democrats taking out-of-context photos of Republicans waving to fans and claiming they were using a Nazi salute, it’s quite bizarre that the one person in politics who could legitimately be accused of being a Nazi sympathizer, and yet, there’s nothing.
If the media actually believed their own standard, Platner would be the lead story on every network right now. Heck, they threw Eric Swalwell under the bus because the evidence was undeniable. The tattoo is real. The racism, misogyny, and antisemitism are documented. Why not throw Platner under the bus, too?
Oh, that’s right… Because, as much as they love to hurl Nazi accusations against the right, the reality is that antisemitism is mainstream in the Democratic Party today, so Platner’s problematic tattoo and internet posts don’t matter because they reflect the values of the party anyway.
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