He's not even the first. Sadly Republicans don't have shame anymore.

He's also an adjudicated rapist, and friends with pedophiles.

The billionaires own the press.

"Free speech absolutists"

Not even projecting it, just owning it.

Because there would be pushback if he did it now. He has to slowly ramp it up. Each step towards fascism has to be small enough that it doesn't trigger mass resistance

Nazi Germany didn't start gassing Jews overnight. They started with deportations. Then they built detention facilities to hold them while waiting for deportation. Then they turned into labor camps. At every step along the way there were courts fighting against it, protests against the camps, opposition media derided it, but at no point was there a big enough change all at once to trigger mass protests, or to trigger the courts to feel a sense of urgency to stop it

By the time they moved to mass murder, the courts had been gutted. The protesters had been arrested. There wasn't enough opposition left to stop it

For an example of the other hand, look at Nepal. Police opened fire on protesters, wounding and killing more than a dozen. Very graphic images of the killings were shared everywhere. It caused the people to rise up all at once. The government lasted less than a week after that