During Donald Trump’s first term as president, critics used to ask, Can you imagine the outcry if a Democrat had done this? As Trump begins his second, the relevant question is Can you imagine the outcry if Trump had done this eight years ago?

Barely 24 hours into this new presidency, Trump has already taken a series of steps that would have caused widespread outrage and mass demonstrations if he had taken them during his first day, week, or year as president, in 2017. Most appallingly, he pardoned more than 1,500 January 6 rioters, including some involved in violence. (Of course, back then, who could have imagined that a president would attempt to stay in power despite losing, or that he would later return to the White House having won the next election?). In addition, he purported to end birthright citizenship, exited the World Health Organization, attempted to turn large portions of the civil service into patronage jobs, and issued an executive order defining gender as a binary.

Although it is early, these steps have, for the most part, been met with muted response, including from a dazed left and press corps. That’s a big shift from eight years ago, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Washington, and Americans flocked to airports at midnight to try to thwart Trump’s travel ban.

[David A. Graham: Trump isn’t bluffing]

The difference arises from three big factors. First, Trump has worked hard to desensitize the population to his most outrageous statements. As I wrote a year ago, forecasting how a second Trump presidency might unfold, the first time he says something, people are shocked. The second time, people notice that Trump is at it again. By the third time, it’s background noise.

Second, Trump has figured out the value of a shock-and-awe strategy. By signing so many controversial executive orders at once, he’s made it difficult for anyone to grasp the scale of the changes he’s made, and he’s splintered a coalition of interests that might otherwise be allied against whatever single thing he had done most recently. Third, American society has changed. People aren’t just less outraged by things Trump is doing; almost a decade of the Trump era has shifted some aspects of American culture far to the right.

Even Trump’s inaugural address yesterday demonstrates the pattern. Audiences were perplexed by his “American carnage” speech four years ago. George W. Bush reportedly deemed it “weird shit,” earthily and accurately. His second inaugural seemed only slightly less bleak—or have we all just become accustomed to this sort of stuff from a president?

[Read: The coming assault on birthright citizenship]

One test of that question is Trump’s executive order on birthright citizenship, which attempts to shift an interpretation of the Constitution that has been in place for more than 150 years. Now “the privilege of United States citizenship does not automatically extend to persons born in the United States,” Trump stated in an order signed yesterday. Lawyers are ready; the order was immediately challenged in court, and may not stand. In any case, the shift that Trump is trying to effect would have a far greater impact than his 2017 effort to bar certain foreign citizens from entering the United States. Birthright citizenship is not just a policy but a theoretical idea of who is American. But Trump has been threatening to do this for years now, so it came as no surprise when he followed through.

In another way, he is also trying to shift what is seen as American. Four years ago, almost the entire nation was appalled by the January 6 riot. As my colleagues Annie Joy Williams and Gisela Salim-Peyer note, United Nations Ambassador-Designate Elise Stefanik called it “un-American”; Secretary of State Marco Rubio called it “anti-American.” Yesterday, Republicans applauded as Trump freed members of that mob whom he has called “hostages.” That included not just people who’d broken into the Capitol but also many who’d engaged in violence. Just this month, Vice President J. D. Vance declared, “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.” Even Vance has become desensitized to Trump. (Heavy users become numb to strong narcotics.)

[Read: Republican leaders once thought January 6 was “tragic”]

But the percentage of Americans who say they disapprove of January 6 has also gone down as distance from the events has grown and propaganda has taken hold. Support for immigration has decreased as well. The WHO exit might have raised more of a fuss before the coronavirus pandemic; now the failures of public-health authorities and insistent attacks on them from politicians including Trump have convinced many people not just that these bodies need reform but that they aren’t needed at all. It’s not just Silicon Valley titans who have acquiesced to Trump and taken up his ideas. Although many people still oppose the president’s agenda, the 2024 election was the first time in three tries that he was able to win a plurality of the popular vote.

In recent weeks, Trump has embarked on a baffling crusade against Panama’s ownership of the Panama Canal. He claimed (incorrectly) that the canal is under Chinese control and suggested the U.S. should go back on the treaty that gave Panama control over the canal zone. Initially, this produced confusion. People were even more surprised when he refused to rule out military action (caveat lector). Still, one couldn’t be sure whether Trump was messing around or serious. Then he brought it up again during yesterday’s inaugural address. By the time Trump sends an expeditionary force to seize the canal, will anyone even raise an eyebrow?

In a break with tradition, Silicon Valley CEOs feature prominently at presidential inauguration.

Did Elon Musk actually toss off a Sieg heil! at Donald Trump’s inauguration rally today?

A lot of people online seem to think he did, based on data from their eyeballs. Freeze-frame images of Musk on social media show the world’s richest man at a podium in Washington, D.C.’s Capital One Arena engaging in what could definitely be construed as a Nazi salute. Video clips of Musk’s speech support this conclusion. Musk stands at the podium, graced with the presidential seal, and thanks the crowd. Then he forcefully slaps his right hand to his chest and rather violently extends his arm outward diagonally to the audience. Multiple historians have backed the idea that Musk’s gesture was indeed a Nazi salute. “Thank you,” Musk says. He makes the gesture to the crowd, turns 180 degrees, and repeats it to the rest of the crowd behind him. “My heart goes out to you,” he adds, placing his hand back on his chest.

What’s left out of much of the discussion is that Musk is supremely, almost cosmically, awkward and stilted. All close observers of Musk—and I am one—know this.

So which one is it? A mask-off full-Nazi moment or just a graceless tech baron not in full control of both his arms and his feelings? (It wouldn’t be the first time he’s embarrassed himself onstage using his limbs.) I would urge you to watch the video for yourself.

Musk has not yet commented publicly on what he did, and he did not respond to my inquiry about what, exactly, he thought he was doing up there. (It’s worth noting that the video Musk posted of his speech did not show Musk performing the gesture head-on—it cut away to the crowd; a C-SPAN clip shows it in full, though.) Eventually, he will almost certainly deny that he Sieg heiled. If history is a guide, he will post on X, scoffing at the accusations. He could make a self-deprecating joke about being so excited that he wasn’t aware of his body. He could act like a troll, like he did when a German magazine likened him to a member of Hitler’s cabinet, and he responded, “I did Nazi that coming.” The most disturbing response might be if he says nothing at all. So far, he has posted several times on X today without addressing the matter.

Musk’s X has given a megaphone to bigots and restored the accounts of banned racists. I’ve argued that Musk has turned X into a white-supremacist website. Musk himself has spent recent weeks enthusiastically endorsing Germany’s far-right political party, Alternative für Deutschland, or AfD. Members of the party have had documented ties to neo-Nazis; in 2018, the co-leader of the AfD downplayed the significance of the Holocaust and the crimes of the Nazi regime. Musk has endorsed posts about the racist “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory. Even those inside the MAGA movement have voiced concerns about Musk. This month, the former Trump adviser Steve Bannon called Musk “a truly evil guy, a very bad guy.” He used the word racist to describe Musk and others in Trump’s Silicon Valley inner circle who have South African heritage: “Why do we have South Africans, the most racist people on earth, white South Africans, we have them making any comments at all on what goes on in the United States?”

All of this informs how one might interpret Musk on the stage today. Above all else, Musk is a troll, an edgelord. He delights in “triggering” his ideological enemies, which includes the media. And his gesture—whatever the intent—has done just that. In a way, the uproar online over Musk is reminiscent of an incident in the first months of the first Trump administration, when two pro-Trump influencers were photographed in the White House press room making the “OK” hand gesture. The photo was interpreted by some media members as a white-power symbol. Reporters and organizations such as the Anti-Defamation League traced it back to racist message boards like 4chan’s /pol/ board. Eventually, however, the gestures appeared to be part of an attempt, by 4chan, to trick the mainstream media into overreacting and turning the handiwork of a few trolls into national news. The whole affair was exhausting and difficult to follow. A message board that trafficked in hate speech created a fake hate-speech symbol to try to trick the media into calling something racist. (The ADL, it is worth noting, has extended Musk the benefit of the doubt, issuing a statement that Musk made an “awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute,” and encouraged everyone to “give one another a bit of grace.”)

None of that is to suggest that Musk’s salute wasn’t genuine. A practiced troll consistently crosses redlines because they want to offend and trigger. They also swaddle their actions in enough detached irony and cynicism that allow them to relentlessly mock or harass anyone who dares take them seriously. There is every reason to take a right-wing troll at face value, and yet doing so often means giving them what they want: an intense reaction they can use against you.

For now, all anyone has to understand Musk’s motives is a damning video, his past words and actions, and plenty of circumstantial evidence about his beliefs. What is undeniable is that watching Musk do that onstage while thousands stood on their feet cheering was more than ominous. Across the internet, Wired reports, neo-Nazis are thrilled at what they believe is a direct signal from the centibillionaire. In many ways, it is a fitting spectacle to begin the second Trump administration: a bunch of people arguing endlessly over something everyone can see with their own eyes.