Robin Wright who writes for The New Yorker, does this whole thing on Trump, Madeleine Albright's criticism of Trump, and Fascism. Mostly, it's nonsense, but there is a way of looking at trends in today's America that could end up with us in something like Fascism.
The process in Italy I'm not so familiar with, let's set it aside. Germany got Fascism when during the Weimar Republic the two main political groups became very polarized, they went beyond politics to street fighting. Germany's Communists and Fascists both had gangs of bully boys as "enforcers" and "guards." Windows (and heads) were broken, marching, fist-shaking and chanting were the order of the day, and demonizing the opposition was very much de rigueur.
In the end Germany's fascists won the election held in this fevered environment. The process in Spain had a similar outcome at the end of a very bloody civil war between the factions.
In the U.S. we aren't there yet, we may never get there. OTOH we've clearly taken tentative steps on the radicalizing/demonizing path that eventually leads to violence and, possibly, either radical socialism (Communism in everything but name) or radical nationalism (Fascism in everything but name).
Those who say they smell a faint whiff of Weimar in the political air of today's America aren't wrong. It is my hope Trump will rescue us from a drift toward absolutism in the same way FDR did 80+ years ago. So far my hopes seem justified.
If Trump does so, it will be in spite of the Democrats much as FDR had to do it in spite of the Republicans of his day. So be it; if it were easy, one of Trump's clueless predecessors might have done it.
