I'm not convinced by the argument "don't pay attention to smaller crazy shit Trump does, that's just the new normal - focus on the worse things he does". If we let the little things slide as the new normal, this doesn't in fact highlight the worse things, it normalizes them too.
I don't think that's the argument there. I think it's more that we shouldn't let the daily bullshit obscure the terrible shit he does.
Yes, this. The rich would very much like you to focus on Trump's stupidity, insanity, and vulgarity, to treat him as the weird billionaire who doesn't act like all the other billionaires in the hope that we will fail to notice that he differs from the norm chiefly by being a worse liar. On policy, he is a perfectly normal Republican, and the Republicans do not want everyone to take note of that.
See, the only real difference between Donald Trump and Elon Musk is that Trump would eat your liver well-done with ketchup and Musk would live-stream cooking it with a flamethrower. Trump is no more cruel or evil than any other billionaire, his leadership no more disastrous for everyone else. In order for one person to accrue a billion dollars, it is necessary for them to be like Trump in every way that really matters: a greedy, venal sociopath.
The new normal is just the old normal with the gilding rubbed away.