There are many conservatives, who hold democratic values, freedom, and the US constitution in high regard. Those in government service have sworn an oath to protect it against enemies foreign and domestic. They have their red lines and breaking points. The ones in powerful positions draw their whole legitimacy from it.
It’s not a full on Nazi salute as the words „Heil“, „Heil Hitler“, or „Sieg Heil“ aren’t used. However, it is a full on salute in its tradition. A right wing oligarch holding a victory speech espousing conservative revolution and a glorious future are in the vein of the fascism of old.
Trumpism doesn’t need to even express itself as fully fascist. The popular support, the support of the tycoons of industry, institutional acquiescence, lack of organized resistance, means he doesn’t need to go full authoritarian.
The ideological flexibility of Trumpism is enormous. Allegiance to Trump and MAGA is pretty much it. The rest of the ideology is dynamically formed by sycophants looking for Trump‘s favor. The post ironic attitude means immunity to value based criticism.
Elon Musk is a mix of minister for propaganda and court jester at the same time.
My heart goes out to you is the fig leaf Elon used for plausible deniability. He probably thinks he was terribly clever. Which, as it turns out, he was. Elon will get away with this and pushed the envelope of what’s possible. Others will imitate him.
This has all the elements for a softer fascist salute, where the words aren’t „Sieg Heil!“ or „Duce!“, but simply „my heart!“. A salute with the hand moving from heart to extension while saying firmly „my heart!“ works well to be visually striking.
The US was the first large scale modern democracy. Of course it has design flaws.
Parlamentarism, as we know it now, had only been recently established in the UK in the 17rh century.
Contemporary to US early democracy were absolutist monarchies based on aristocracy. Separation of powers envisioned by Montesquieu, Rousseau‘s social contract, were still new political ideas. The federalist papers and later US constitution were cutting edge political theory at the time.
It’s very impressive that the US has lasted so long actually and was able to adapt. The French established their first democratic republic later and were unable to create a stable state.