Milwaukee Meteorologist Fired One Day After Criticizing Elon Musk’s Nazi-ish Salute
To borrow a phrase famously used by the world class philosophers called Green Day, Elon Musk is something of a walking contradiction. He touts the so-called “Twitter Files” as some kind of damning report on government weaponization against critical content and is then accused of doing exactly the same thing himself. He’s a “free speech advocate” that went nuts when Twitter briefly blocked the NY Post, only to turn around and even more explicitly block news content himself in a far more ham-handed way. Musk is a man who has spit absolute vitriol towards people he dislikes on social media, at times potentially putting them in harm’s way by third-party fans of his, only to ask the rest of ExTwitter to just be nice to one another.
It’s a very specific brand of nihilism that perhaps makes sense in Musk’s head, but looks like a hypocrisy speedrun to the rest of us. His fans don’t care, of course, but it should be equally obvious that their defense of all things Elon is as performative as Musk’s routine. One great example is the discourse that has surrounded a gesture Elon recently made, which allies are referring to as an “odd gesture”, and critics refer to as “holy shit, did he just do a Nazi salute?” Below is footage of what occurred.
Was that definitely a Nazi salute? I’m not here to answer yes to that question. I’ve been reminded by all kinds of fans of Musk that the man claims to be on the spectrum and that one of the symptoms includes trouble properly using non-verbal communication. And, hey, sure, I acknowledge that.
He also did what looks like a fucking Nazi salute, people. Whether that was his intention or not is not known by this writer, but this game that a section of the country is playing by reacting to the accusation as though it were completely crazy is just stupid. There is nothing unreasonable about thinking that’s what it looked like. It was literally the first thing I thought of when I saw his gesture.
And it appears it was what a Milwaukee meteorologist thought of as well when she reacted to it on her own social media. Then she was fired the next day.
A Milwaukee TV weather forecaster has been dropped by her station one day after she criticized Elon Musk on social media for his straight-arm gesture that many have likened to a Nazi salute.
Staffers at WDJT-TV (Channel 58) were alerted by email on Wednesday that meteorologist Sam Kuffel had left the station. Her biography and picture had been removed from Channel 58 website by Wednesday afternoon.
“Meteorologist Sam Kuffel is no longer employed at CBS58,” said the staff memo from news director Jessie Garcia that was obtained by the Journal Sentinel. “A search for a replacement is underway.”
Conservative radio had reacted to Instagram posts by Kuffel and had lost their minds over them, once again acting like the whole thing didn’t look like what it looked like. And I will stipulate that the posts by Kuffel weren’t nice. One called Musk a “Nazi” and a “bitch” by way of an Always Sunny In Philadelphia meme. Another accused him via a meme of doing a Nazi salute and saying she would have nothing to do with any fans of his. Those aren’t particularly nice.
But so what?
They are the kind of free speech Musk and his fans have claimed to support. So why are some of them trying to drum up consequences for Kuffel? And if Musk really wants to behave as a free speech advocate, why isn’t he himself attempting to step in and say that the firing of Kuffel over this speech is wrong? Surely that is what a true advocate of free and unfettered speech would do.
And why the hell does a news station in Milwaukee of all places want to build a reputation for self-censorship like this? Milwaukee isn’t exactly deep Trump country or anything like that, so what exactly is WDJT-TV so deathly afraid of that it too can’t be bothered to stand up for the speech rights of its own staff members? And why should the staff members that are still employed by the station not think that their own ability to speak freely hasn’t been curtailed by the station’s own cowardice?
Another walking contradiction: a news channel that will only allow for certain reactions and interpretations of the news. Sounds mostly worthless to me.